This is a good thread - though it fails in turn to note that "the commentariat" was hardly unanimous in its (belatedly vanished) enthusiasm for Johnson. Seldon, I hope, has the good judgment to blush deeply when he rereads some of the shit he came out with.
This is a good thread - though it fails in turn to note that "the commentariat" was hardly unanimous in its (belatedly vanished) enthusiasm for Johnson. Seldon, I hope, has the good judgment to blush deeply when he rereads some of the shit he came out with.
But there's a question he doesn't address here, which needs more attention.
It troubled me about his book, too. So let me try to explain... 🧵
I posted this before. It’s an important thread.
Someone needs to explain how Seldon was so stupidly fooled in the first place.
Is it some kind of dysfunctional class affinity?
The last actually intellectual PM was Gordon Brown. And before that, I’d controversially nominate Margaret Thatcher.
The idea that Gordon Brown was an intellectual just shows how good he was at personal branding. I'd place both Blair and Johnson above him on that score.
I assume the death of Silvio Berlusconi has already been covered.
I think, to summarise, we concluded he was basically a bit of a sh1t, but nevertheless it'd have been rude to turn down an invitation to one of his cheese & wine soirées so we'd all have gone along under protest.
I suspect Leon secretly attended one of his parties, all in the name of research for one of his journalist articles of course
Senate GOP leaders break with House on Trump indictment https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4043338-senate-gop-leaders-break-with-house-on-trump-indictment/ ...Senate Republican leaders, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), are staying quiet about former President Trump’s indictment on 37 criminal charges, letting him twist in the wind and breaking with House Republican leaders who have rushed to Trump’s defense.
McConnell, who is careful not to comment on Trump or even repeat his name in public, has said to his GOP colleagues that he wants his party to turn the page on the former president, whom he sees as a flawed general election candidate and a drag on Senate Republican candidates. The Senate GOP leader’s top deputies — Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — have also indicated they don’t want Trump to win the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.
They, along with McConnell, are letting Trump’s legal troubles unfold without coming to the former president’s defense, in contrast to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who both issued statements Thursday criticizing the Justice Department before the indictment was unsealed to the public.
“They want him to go away, so they wouldn’t be very upset if this is the thing that finally takes him out,” a former Senate Republican aide said about the Senate Republican leaders’ silence on Trump’s indictment.
There are, of course, dishonourable exceptions, like Graham, Johnson, Vance etc.
Christian 43.0% Muslim 12.5% Hindu 8.6% Sikh 4.1% Buddhist 0.9% Jewish 0.2% Others 0.7% No religion 23.7% Not answered 6.2%
pretty typical of UK then
Not at all actually. Much higher Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. Much, much lower no religion. And a bit lower Christian too.
The well above average Hindu vote in Uxbridge will likely boost Rishi and the Tories there
Why didn't the very similar Watford vote Conservative in the May?
Uxbridge still has a higher Hindu percentage than Watford.
8.6% vs 8.2%
That's the equivalent of 80 people. Let's say a sixth off for those who aren't eligible to vote (passport), a quarter off for under-18s, and then a quarter off the remainder for "can vote but won't".
Thirty-eight people.
Now let's say they go from a quarter voting Tory to three quarters voting Tory. Your Sunak Hindu swing is about twenty extra votes.
Now I come back to my question from the weekend. How many of the other 102,000 people in the constituency are 2019 Tory voters who for whatever reason don't want to vote for party lead by a Hindu man. Do you think you can find more or less than TWENTY voters?
If so, you're left with a net deficit due to people voting within racial/religious boundaries.
It might occur to you at this point that there are a great number of other reasons people might shift their vote to or from a party other than religion. If so, please step into that beam of sunlight that's broken through into your weird little psephological dungeon. You'll find that people are better than you suppose.
So still higher than Watford then.
And you deliberately and completely ignored EVERY other point I made as they don't suit your argument, so I will repeat them below:
'Watford was not Conservative held in 1997, Uxbridge was. Watford was only 50% Leave, Hillingdon was 56% Leave. The Tories also held Hillingdon council last year even if they don't control Watford council.
Maybe those strange brown Hindu people are like other human beings, though, and make up their own minds how to vote, rather than automatically preferring "one of their own kind".
I don't think you can conclude from that information that. I don't deny that at a demographic level somebody's religion can certainly be a *predictor* (to be used among other factors) of how they might vote, but even in the strongest correlation on there - Muslims and Labour - it's still only about half.
He was not obviously a terrorist sympathiser who hung out with antisemites. He promised to break the Brexit deadlock. And - although we didn't know it at the time - his support for Ukraine would be absolutely crucial in helping them resist the Russian invasion in 2022.
But his personal failings were always likely to pose... problems... Like Trump, he seems to believe the rules don't apply to him. (Which is a particular issue if you are insisting everyone else follows draconian rules you introduced.)
Just a reminder that Johnson is a racist c*** who called black people "piccaninnies" with "watermelon smiles" - and the Tory party had no investigation or anything like that. It was a bit like with Jimmy Savile at the BBC and in hospitals and schools - oh that's Jimmy, he does that kind of thing, don't take it seriously. Not the same actions of course, but the same moral philosophy.
Tesla's Autopilot system has been involved in more than 700 crashes in the US since 2019, including 17 fatalities, far more than previously reported, according to regulators."
700 autopilot crashes since 2019. c. 7m non-autopilot crashes per year in the US, so around 30m in the same period.
Perhaps Tesla Autopilot isn't as unsafe as is being suggested...?
Oh my god, are we still talking about Turkish membership?
The claim that Turkey was joining the EU was a kind of lie. Who cares about the semantics, the reality was they were not joining any time soon.
It wasn’t the worst kind of lie. In fact, I’d argue it falls into the species of half-truth that is common in US political debate but less so in the UK (see below). It practice, it cleverly pinpointed an obfuscation and hypocrisy on the Remain side.
Cameron, as noted upthread, was too feeble to rebut the point properly.
The main issue with the claim was the unfortunate racist undertone. Previously, such claims would not have been considered acceptable within the tacit consensus governing British political discourse.
Leave specialised in these not-quite-lies with a racist flavour. Remain never saw it coming.
Turkey is joining the EU. Sweden is joining the Euro. Discuss.
Actually I was commenting on Mordaunt saying the UK has no veto on Turkish entry (afaik she still refuses to say that is wrong), and as an example (Sandpit provided another) of Mordaunt's lack of character. She strikes me as someone who has entered politics for the wrong reasons - in that way she seems like Johnson to me.
She may have misspoke in her precise wording, but her point was that the British people don't have a veto because they wouldn't be asked and the government's policy was to support Turkish membership.
She didn't even mis-speak, she was quite clear, repeatedly, in what she was saying. I just listened to her interview with Andrew Marr on this again, and she repeatedly makes the distinction that the voters would not be given a say in her view.
Which is correct. She was right, unequivocally. Those calling her lying either misunderstand what she said and are wrong, or understand it and are lying themselves about it.
Even if she said that it's a highly disingenuous comment. It can be addressed simply by putting the proposal to vote, as several other countries routinely do. In any case the public aren't directly consulted on anything else, so why pick out Turkish membership of the EU.
She was questioned about this on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show in May 2016.
He told Ms Mordaunt: "The British government does have a veto on Turkey joining so we don't have to let them join."
She replied: "No, it doesn't. We are not going to be able to have a say."
Try listening to what she actually said. She was explicitly clear that the voters would not get a say.
What part of "No it doesn't" have a veto do you not understand?
Christian 43.0% Muslim 12.5% Hindu 8.6% Sikh 4.1% Buddhist 0.9% Jewish 0.2% Others 0.7% No religion 23.7% Not answered 6.2%
pretty typical of UK then
Not at all actually. Much higher Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. Much, much lower no religion. And a bit lower Christian too.
The well above average Hindu vote in Uxbridge will likely boost Rishi and the Tories there
Why didn't the very similar Watford vote Conservative in the May?
Uxbridge still has a higher Hindu percentage than Watford.
8.6% vs 8.2%
That's the equivalent of 80 people. Let's say a sixth off for those who aren't eligible to vote (passport), a quarter off for under-18s, and then a quarter off the remainder for "can vote but won't".
Thirty-eight people.
Now let's say they go from a quarter voting Tory to three quarters voting Tory. Your Sunak Hindu swing is about twenty extra votes.
Now I come back to my question from the weekend. How many of the other 102,000 people in the constituency are 2019 Tory voters who for whatever reason don't want to vote for party lead by a Hindu man. Do you think you can find more or less than TWENTY voters?
If so, you're left with a net deficit due to people voting within racial/religious boundaries.
It might occur to you at this point that there are a great number of other reasons people might shift their vote to or from a party other than religion. If so, please step into that beam of sunlight that's broken through into your weird little psephological dungeon. You'll find that people are better than you suppose.
So still higher than Watford then.
And you deliberately and completely ignored EVERY other point I made as they don't suit your argument, so I will repeat them below:
'Watford was not Conservative held in 1997, Uxbridge was. Watford was only 50% Leave, Hillingdon was 56% Leave. The Tories also held Hillingdon council last year even if they don't control Watford council.
Maybe those strange brown Hindu people are like other human beings, though, and make up their own minds how to vote, rather than automatically preferring "one of their own kind".
I don't think you can conclude from that information that. I don't deny that at a demographic level somebody's religion can certainly be a *predictor* (to be used among other factors) of how they might vote, but even in the strongest correlation on there - Muslims and Labour - it's still only about half.
Hounslow's last election was 2022 when the Roman Catholic Boris was PM not the Hindu Sunak.
Yes there will never be 100% correlation but the fact that on that chart Labour won about 50% of Muslims in 2019 and a narrow plurality of atheists and Christian Pentecostals (mainly Black churches) even when it lost by a landslide nationally tells you those groups lean Labour.
While the bigger than average Conservative lead amongst Jews and Anglicans, Baptists and URC and Methodists tells you those groups lean Conservative. Hindus, Roman Catholics and Church of Scotland and Buddhists and Orthodox closer to swing voters.
LDs meanwhile seem to do best amongst Buddhists and Baptists, Farage's Party amongst evangelicals, Methodists and Anglicans, the SNP unsurprisingly amongst Church of Scotland voters
Tesla's Autopilot system has been involved in more than 700 crashes in the US since 2019, including 17 fatalities, far more than previously reported, according to regulators."
700 autopilot crashes since 2019. c. 7m non-autopilot crashes per year in the US, so around 30m in the same period.
Perhaps Tesla Autopilot isn't as unsafe as is being suggested...?
Tesla's Autopilot system has been involved in more than 700 crashes in the US since 2019, including 17 fatalities, far more than previously reported, according to regulators."
700 autopilot crashes since 2019. c. 7m non-autopilot crashes per year in the US, so around 30m in the same period.
Perhaps Tesla Autopilot isn't as unsafe as is being suggested...?
But as ever, you need to compare like-with-like, including the type and age of the cars involved. Newer cars tend to be better in crashes than older ones, so comparisons of figures need to factor that in.
Autopilot has two issues: *) It is being beta-tested in a live environment. *) It is being sold as being something it is not, and better than it is.
The British people don't have a veto on anything. Parliament is sovereign.
The King is, technically, I thought? Form over substance - Chucky 3 sticks. Substance over form - Parliament.
Hence "God Save Da King", rather than "God Save The British People".
Interesting thought...if we become a republic, what happens to the dirge aka national anthem?
Actually the word "sovereignty" much loved of those who don't understand the term might do it, due to the number of syllables:
God save our sov-er-ignty, long live our sov-er-ignty, long may it stay
Send it victorious, happ-ily boring us,
Long to-oo confuse all of us
God save our Thing
Land of Hope & Glory is OK.
Rule Britannia too un-woke. Jerusalem too pretentious!
A pity I Vow To Thee, My Country is too religious as well (and rather problematic with the whole “For King and Country” sacrifice vibe). The music is basically nabbed from the best bit of Jupiter by Holst. Wonderfully stirring.
There is no mention of For King and Country. It refers to "there is another country" referring to heaven. It is a very moving hymn. It could be sung about any country. May be particularly apt for Ukraine at the moment:
The love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test, That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best; The love that never falters, the love that pays the price, The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.
This is a good thread - though it fails in turn to note that "the commentariat" was hardly unanimous in its (belatedly vanished) enthusiasm for Johnson. Seldon, I hope, has the good judgment to blush deeply when he rereads some of the shit he came out with.
I assume the death of Silvio Berlusconi has already been covered.
I think, to summarise, we concluded he was basically a bit of a sh1t, but nevertheless it'd have been rude to turn down an invitation to one of his cheese & wine soirées so we'd all have gone along under protest.
I suspect Leon secretly attended one of his parties, all in the name of research for one of his journalist articles of course
Christian 43.0% Muslim 12.5% Hindu 8.6% Sikh 4.1% Buddhist 0.9% Jewish 0.2% Others 0.7% No religion 23.7% Not answered 6.2%
pretty typical of UK then
Not at all actually. Much higher Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. Much, much lower no religion. And a bit lower Christian too.
The well above average Hindu vote in Uxbridge will likely boost Rishi and the Tories there
Why didn't the very similar Watford vote Conservative in the May?
Uxbridge still has a higher Hindu percentage than Watford.
8.6% vs 8.2%
That's the equivalent of 80 people. Let's say a sixth off for those who aren't eligible to vote (passport), a quarter off for under-18s, and then a quarter off the remainder for "can vote but won't".
Thirty-eight people.
Now let's say they go from a quarter voting Tory to three quarters voting Tory. Your Sunak Hindu swing is about twenty extra votes.
Now I come back to my question from the weekend. How many of the other 102,000 people in the constituency are 2019 Tory voters who for whatever reason don't want to vote for party lead by a Hindu man. Do you think you can find more or less than TWENTY voters?
If so, you're left with a net deficit due to people voting within racial/religious boundaries.
It might occur to you at this point that there are a great number of other reasons people might shift their vote to or from a party other than religion. If so, please step into that beam of sunlight that's broken through into your weird little psephological dungeon. You'll find that people are better than you suppose.
So still higher than Watford then.
And you deliberately and completely ignored EVERY other point I made as they don't suit your argument, so I will repeat them below:
'Watford was not Conservative held in 1997, Uxbridge was. Watford was only 50% Leave, Hillingdon was 56% Leave. The Tories also held Hillingdon council last year even if they don't control Watford council.
Maybe those strange brown Hindu people are like other human beings, though, and make up their own minds how to vote, rather than automatically preferring "one of their own kind".
I don't think you can conclude from that information that. I don't deny that at a demographic level somebody's religion can certainly be a *predictor* (to be used among other factors) of how they might vote, but even in the strongest correlation on there - Muslims and Labour - it's still only about half.
Hounslow's last election was 2022 when the Roman Catholic Boris was PM not the Hindu Sunak.
Yes there will never be 100% correlation but the fact that on that chart Labour won about 50% of Muslims in 2019 and a narrow plurality of atheists and Christian Pentecostals (mainly Black churches) even when it lost by a landslide nationally tells you those groups lean Labour.
While the bigger than average Conservative lead amongst Jews and Anglicans, Baptists and URC and Methodists tells you those groups lean Conservative. Hindus, Roman Catholics and Church of Scotland and Buddhists and Orthodox closer to swing voters.
LDs meanwhile seem to do best amongst Buddhists and Baptists, Farage's Party amongst evangelicals, Methodists and Anglicans, the SNP unsurprisingly amongst Church of Scotland voters
Though of course as mentioned the Leicester result in the local elections suggests Rishi is shifting Hindus from swing voters to lean Conservative
Oh my god, are we still talking about Turkish membership?
The claim that Turkey was joining the EU was a kind of lie. Who cares about the semantics, the reality was they were not joining any time soon.
It wasn’t the worst kind of lie. In fact, I’d argue it falls into the species of half-truth that is common in US political debate but less so in the UK (see below). It practice, it cleverly pinpointed an obfuscation and hypocrisy on the Remain side.
Cameron, as noted upthread, was too feeble to rebut the point properly.
The main issue with the claim was the unfortunate racist undertone. Previously, such claims would not have been considered acceptable within the tacit consensus governing British political discourse.
Leave specialised in these not-quite-lies with a racist flavour. Remain never saw it coming.
I'm guessing you base that conclusion on the premise that had Remain seen that stuff coming they'd have rebutted it better. But what would they have done that they didn't? The attitude from Leave to anything they said would have been "What dogwhistle?" and "Who mentioned race?" The unconscious mind that politicians aim at isn't very good at handling negatives. Leave would have absolutely loved it if Remain had responded to the lie about the supposed Turkish peril by saying "That is so disgracefully racist, what you're saying." Cf. Roger Stone when he posed with the Proud Boys, and the line from right-wing smirkers that he was simply flashing an "OK" sign and didn't mean to communicate "WP" for "White Power" at all:
How much are we allowed to say about the alleged parentage of Charlotte Kathryn Tranter Owen (born 1993)? Twitter people have put a good case for her being the daughter of two specific people, but Twitter is a bullshit farm and Ms. Owen is a real person. I'm a bit uncomfortable about speculation about a living breathing person and I need to know what the boundaries are here.
The boundaries are it's really none of our business. HOLAC makes no judgment on the suitability of those nominated to be peers, but it does have a responsibility otherwise to defend the propriety of the process.
I'm willing to accept their judgment, and merely note that her qualifications for the role look exceedingly thin.
I read that crap at the parliamentary website too. So a nominee can be suitable for appointment without it being "proper" to appoint them? What a load of words.
It's the HoL, so it's all bollocks.
But they do actually define "propriety" - The Commission takes the view that in this context, propriety means:
i) the individual should be in good standing in the community in general and with the public regulatory authorities in particular; and
ii) the past conduct of the nominee would not reasonably be regarded as bringing the House of Lords into disrepute.
So unless it's obvious to everyone you're a crim, you'll likely sail through i).
Tesla's Autopilot system has been involved in more than 700 crashes in the US since 2019, including 17 fatalities, far more than previously reported, according to regulators."
700 autopilot crashes since 2019. c. 7m non-autopilot crashes per year in the US, so around 30m in the same period.
Perhaps Tesla Autopilot isn't as unsafe as is being suggested...?
What we don't know is whether the crashes were *because* of the autopilot making an error or whether it was coincidental to the fatality. I have it on my Tesla but rarely use it. I still find the lane changing quite unnerving.
Christian 43.0% Muslim 12.5% Hindu 8.6% Sikh 4.1% Buddhist 0.9% Jewish 0.2% Others 0.7% No religion 23.7% Not answered 6.2%
pretty typical of UK then
Not at all actually. Much higher Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. Much, much lower no religion. And a bit lower Christian too.
The well above average Hindu vote in Uxbridge will likely boost Rishi and the Tories there
Why didn't the very similar Watford vote Conservative in the May?
Uxbridge still has a higher Hindu percentage than Watford.
8.6% vs 8.2%
That's the equivalent of 80 people. Let's say a sixth off for those who aren't eligible to vote (passport), a quarter off for under-18s, and then a quarter off the remainder for "can vote but won't".
Thirty-eight people.
Now let's say they go from a quarter voting Tory to three quarters voting Tory. Your Sunak Hindu swing is about twenty extra votes.
Now I come back to my question from the weekend. How many of the other 102,000 people in the constituency are 2019 Tory voters who for whatever reason don't want to vote for party lead by a Hindu man. Do you think you can find more or less than TWENTY voters?
If so, you're left with a net deficit due to people voting within racial/religious boundaries.
It might occur to you at this point that there are a great number of other reasons people might shift their vote to or from a party other than religion. If so, please step into that beam of sunlight that's broken through into your weird little psephological dungeon. You'll find that people are better than you suppose.
So still higher than Watford then.
And you deliberately and completely ignored EVERY other point I made as they don't suit your argument, so I will repeat them below:
'Watford was not Conservative held in 1997, Uxbridge was. Watford was only 50% Leave, Hillingdon was 56% Leave. The Tories also held Hillingdon council last year even if they don't control Watford council.
Maybe those strange brown Hindu people are like other human beings, though, and make up their own minds how to vote, rather than automatically preferring "one of their own kind".
I don't think you can conclude from that information that. I don't deny that at a demographic level somebody's religion can certainly be a *predictor* (to be used among other factors) of how they might vote, but even in the strongest correlation on there - Muslims and Labour - it's still only about half.
Hounslow's last election was 2022 when the Roman Catholic Boris was PM not the Hindu Sunak.
Yes there will never be 100% correlation but the fact that on that chart Labour won about 50% of Muslims in 2019 and a narrow plurality of atheists and Christian Pentecostals (mainly Black churches) even when it lost by a landslide nationally tells you those groups lean Labour.
While the bigger than average Conservative lead amongst Jews and Anglicans, Baptists and URC and Methodists tells you those groups lean Conservative. Hindus, Roman Catholics and Church of Scotland and Buddhists and Orthodox closer to swing voters.
LDs meanwhile seem to do best amongst Buddhists and Baptists, Farage's Party amongst evangelicals and Anglicans, the SNP unsurprisingly amongst Church of Scotland voters
I'd say the Church of Scotland affiliates are strikingly *unlikely* to vote SNP; only about 17% which is a fair whack lower their national total of 45% - so less than half as likely as average, fact (in absolute fairness this presupposes that all CoS folk place their vote in Scotland - and also without taking DKs/DNVs out of account - but even allowing for that, it's still pretty low).
But I hope we can all agree now that Rishi would be wrong to take the good Hindus of Uxbridge and South Ruislip for granted.
Oh my god, are we still talking about Turkish membership?
The claim that Turkey was joining the EU was a kind of lie. Who cares about the semantics, the reality was they were not joining any time soon.
It wasn’t the worst kind of lie. In fact, I’d argue it falls into the species of half-truth that is common in US political debate but less so in the UK (see below). It practice, it cleverly pinpointed an obfuscation and hypocrisy on the Remain side.
Cameron, as noted upthread, was too feeble to rebut the point properly.
The main issue with the claim was the unfortunate racist undertone. Previously, such claims would not have been considered acceptable within the tacit consensus governing British political discourse.
Leave specialised in these not-quite-lies with a racist flavour. Remain never saw it coming.
Turkey is joining the EU. Sweden is joining the Euro. Discuss.
The EU changes if Turkey joins. Sweden would enormously strengthen the Euro should they adopt it.
Christian 43.0% Muslim 12.5% Hindu 8.6% Sikh 4.1% Buddhist 0.9% Jewish 0.2% Others 0.7% No religion 23.7% Not answered 6.2%
pretty typical of UK then
Not at all actually. Much higher Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. Much, much lower no religion. And a bit lower Christian too.
The well above average Hindu vote in Uxbridge will likely boost Rishi and the Tories there
Why didn't the very similar Watford vote Conservative in the May?
Uxbridge still has a higher Hindu percentage than Watford.
8.6% vs 8.2%
That's the equivalent of 80 people. Let's say a sixth off for those who aren't eligible to vote (passport), a quarter off for under-18s, and then a quarter off the remainder for "can vote but won't".
Thirty-eight people.
Now let's say they go from a quarter voting Tory to three quarters voting Tory. Your Sunak Hindu swing is about twenty extra votes.
Now I come back to my question from the weekend. How many of the other 102,000 people in the constituency are 2019 Tory voters who for whatever reason don't want to vote for party lead by a Hindu man. Do you think you can find more or less than TWENTY voters?
If so, you're left with a net deficit due to people voting within racial/religious boundaries.
It might occur to you at this point that there are a great number of other reasons people might shift their vote to or from a party other than religion. If so, please step into that beam of sunlight that's broken through into your weird little psephological dungeon. You'll find that people are better than you suppose.
So still higher than Watford then.
And you deliberately and completely ignored EVERY other point I made as they don't suit your argument, so I will repeat them below:
'Watford was not Conservative held in 1997, Uxbridge was. Watford was only 50% Leave, Hillingdon was 56% Leave. The Tories also held Hillingdon council last year even if they don't control Watford council.
Maybe those strange brown Hindu people are like other human beings, though, and make up their own minds how to vote, rather than automatically preferring "one of their own kind".
I don't think you can conclude from that information that. I don't deny that at a demographic level somebody's religion can certainly be a *predictor* (to be used among other factors) of how they might vote, but even in the strongest correlation on there - Muslims and Labour - it's still only about half.
I really want to meet those Buddhists who supported the Brexit Party.
That is a bit odd. I do Buddhist meditation and there's precious little there about borders and flags.
Christian 43.0% Muslim 12.5% Hindu 8.6% Sikh 4.1% Buddhist 0.9% Jewish 0.2% Others 0.7% No religion 23.7% Not answered 6.2%
pretty typical of UK then
Not at all actually. Much higher Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. Much, much lower no religion. And a bit lower Christian too.
The well above average Hindu vote in Uxbridge will likely boost Rishi and the Tories there
Why didn't the very similar Watford vote Conservative in the May?
Uxbridge still has a higher Hindu percentage than Watford.
8.6% vs 8.2%
That's the equivalent of 80 people. Let's say a sixth off for those who aren't eligible to vote (passport), a quarter off for under-18s, and then a quarter off the remainder for "can vote but won't".
Thirty-eight people.
Now let's say they go from a quarter voting Tory to three quarters voting Tory. Your Sunak Hindu swing is about twenty extra votes.
Now I come back to my question from the weekend. How many of the other 102,000 people in the constituency are 2019 Tory voters who for whatever reason don't want to vote for party lead by a Hindu man. Do you think you can find more or less than TWENTY voters?
If so, you're left with a net deficit due to people voting within racial/religious boundaries.
It might occur to you at this point that there are a great number of other reasons people might shift their vote to or from a party other than religion. If so, please step into that beam of sunlight that's broken through into your weird little psephological dungeon. You'll find that people are better than you suppose.
So still higher than Watford then.
And you deliberately and completely ignored EVERY other point I made as they don't suit your argument, so I will repeat them below:
'Watford was not Conservative held in 1997, Uxbridge was. Watford was only 50% Leave, Hillingdon was 56% Leave. The Tories also held Hillingdon council last year even if they don't control Watford council.
Maybe those strange brown Hindu people are like other human beings, though, and make up their own minds how to vote, rather than automatically preferring "one of their own kind".
I don't think you can conclude from that information that. I don't deny that at a demographic level somebody's religion can certainly be a *predictor* (to be used among other factors) of how they might vote, but even in the strongest correlation on there - Muslims and Labour - it's still only about half.
Hounslow's last election was 2022 when the Roman Catholic Boris was PM not the Hindu Sunak.
Yes there will never be 100% correlation but the fact that on that chart Labour won about 50% of Muslims in 2019 and a narrow plurality of atheists and Christian Pentecostals (mainly Black churches) even when it lost by a landslide nationally tells you those groups lean Labour.
While the bigger than average Conservative lead amongst Jews and Anglicans, Baptists and URC and Methodists tells you those groups lean Conservative. Hindus, Roman Catholics and Church of Scotland and Buddhists and Orthodox closer to swing voters.
LDs meanwhile seem to do best amongst Buddhists and Baptists, Farage's Party amongst evangelicals, Methodists and Anglicans, the SNP unsurprisingly amongst Church of Scotland voters
Though of course as mentioned the Leicester result in the local elections suggests Rishi is shifting Hindus from swing voters to lean Conservative
If Kier Starmer said he was a practicing CoE I assume you would automatically start voting for him? Surely you would be unable to resist?
This is a good thread - though it fails in turn to note that "the commentariat" was hardly unanimous in its (belatedly vanished) enthusiasm for Johnson. Seldon, I hope, has the good judgment to blush deeply when he rereads some of the shit he came out with.
But there's a question he doesn't address here, which needs more attention.
It troubled me about his book, too. So let me try to explain... 🧵
I posted this before. It’s an important thread.
Someone needs to explain how Seldon was so stupidly fooled in the first place.
Is it some kind of dysfunctional class affinity?
The last actually intellectual PM was Gordon Brown. And before that, I’d controversially nominate Margaret Thatcher.
What was it, other than gullibility, that all these onetime Johnson fans had in common ?
Rating perceived success over intrinsic merit. I had the all the time on here as a consistent non-Boris fan. I would point to Johnson's obvious failings as a leader and as a human being, only.to be told, you can't deny he's successful. Even now their issue with him is not moral, it's that he's no longer seen as a winner.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
Tesla's Autopilot system has been involved in more than 700 crashes in the US since 2019, including 17 fatalities, far more than previously reported, according to regulators."
700 autopilot crashes since 2019. c. 7m non-autopilot crashes per year in the US, so around 30m in the same period.
Perhaps Tesla Autopilot isn't as unsafe as is being suggested...?
What we don't know is whether the crashes were *because* of the autopilot making an error or whether it was coincidental to the fatality. I have it on my Tesla but rarely use it. I still find the lane changing quite unnerving.
The stat you want is number of crashes per mile driven.
Christian 43.0% Muslim 12.5% Hindu 8.6% Sikh 4.1% Buddhist 0.9% Jewish 0.2% Others 0.7% No religion 23.7% Not answered 6.2%
pretty typical of UK then
Not at all actually. Much higher Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. Much, much lower no religion. And a bit lower Christian too.
The well above average Hindu vote in Uxbridge will likely boost Rishi and the Tories there
Why didn't the very similar Watford vote Conservative in the May?
Uxbridge still has a higher Hindu percentage than Watford.
8.6% vs 8.2%
That's the equivalent of 80 people. Let's say a sixth off for those who aren't eligible to vote (passport), a quarter off for under-18s, and then a quarter off the remainder for "can vote but won't".
Thirty-eight people.
Now let's say they go from a quarter voting Tory to three quarters voting Tory. Your Sunak Hindu swing is about twenty extra votes.
Now I come back to my question from the weekend. How many of the other 102,000 people in the constituency are 2019 Tory voters who for whatever reason don't want to vote for party lead by a Hindu man. Do you think you can find more or less than TWENTY voters?
If so, you're left with a net deficit due to people voting within racial/religious boundaries.
It might occur to you at this point that there are a great number of other reasons people might shift their vote to or from a party other than religion. If so, please step into that beam of sunlight that's broken through into your weird little psephological dungeon. You'll find that people are better than you suppose.
So still higher than Watford then.
And you deliberately and completely ignored EVERY other point I made as they don't suit your argument, so I will repeat them below:
'Watford was not Conservative held in 1997, Uxbridge was. Watford was only 50% Leave, Hillingdon was 56% Leave. The Tories also held Hillingdon council last year even if they don't control Watford council.
Maybe those strange brown Hindu people are like other human beings, though, and make up their own minds how to vote, rather than automatically preferring "one of their own kind".
I don't think you can conclude from that information that. I don't deny that at a demographic level somebody's religion can certainly be a *predictor* (to be used among other factors) of how they might vote, but even in the strongest correlation on there - Muslims and Labour - it's still only about half.
I really want to meet those Buddhists who supported the Brexit Party.
That is a bit odd. I do Buddhist meditation and there's precious little there about borders and flags.
One who drinks deeply of the Dharma with a clear and open border mind, rests well.
I had a uni friend who was v. into Tibetan Buddhism. As I recall, they are very into prayer flags in their lamaseries, but not - so far as I know - the Union Flag.
Christian 43.0% Muslim 12.5% Hindu 8.6% Sikh 4.1% Buddhist 0.9% Jewish 0.2% Others 0.7% No religion 23.7% Not answered 6.2%
pretty typical of UK then
Not at all actually. Much higher Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. Much, much lower no religion. And a bit lower Christian too.
The well above average Hindu vote in Uxbridge will likely boost Rishi and the Tories there
Why didn't the very similar Watford vote Conservative in the May?
Uxbridge still has a higher Hindu percentage than Watford.
8.6% vs 8.2%
That's the equivalent of 80 people. Let's say a sixth off for those who aren't eligible to vote (passport), a quarter off for under-18s, and then a quarter off the remainder for "can vote but won't".
Thirty-eight people.
Now let's say they go from a quarter voting Tory to three quarters voting Tory. Your Sunak Hindu swing is about twenty extra votes.
Now I come back to my question from the weekend. How many of the other 102,000 people in the constituency are 2019 Tory voters who for whatever reason don't want to vote for party lead by a Hindu man. Do you think you can find more or less than TWENTY voters?
If so, you're left with a net deficit due to people voting within racial/religious boundaries.
It might occur to you at this point that there are a great number of other reasons people might shift their vote to or from a party other than religion. If so, please step into that beam of sunlight that's broken through into your weird little psephological dungeon. You'll find that people are better than you suppose.
So still higher than Watford then.
And you deliberately and completely ignored EVERY other point I made as they don't suit your argument, so I will repeat them below:
'Watford was not Conservative held in 1997, Uxbridge was. Watford was only 50% Leave, Hillingdon was 56% Leave. The Tories also held Hillingdon council last year even if they don't control Watford council.
Maybe those strange brown Hindu people are like other human beings, though, and make up their own minds how to vote, rather than automatically preferring "one of their own kind".
I don't think you can conclude from that information that. I don't deny that at a demographic level somebody's religion can certainly be a *predictor* (to be used among other factors) of how they might vote, but even in the strongest correlation on there - Muslims and Labour - it's still only about half.
I really want to meet those Buddhists who supported the Brexit Party.
Maybe it was an assumption based on the number of supporters were bald big fat blokes?
He was not obviously a terrorist sympathiser who hung out with antisemites. He promised to break the Brexit deadlock. And - although we didn't know it at the time - his support for Ukraine would be absolutely crucial in helping them resist the Russian invasion in 2022.
But his personal failings were always likely to pose... problems... Like Trump, he seems to believe the rules don't apply to him. (Which is a particular issue if you are insisting everyone else follows draconian rules you introduced.)
Just a reminder that Johnson is a racist c*** who called black people "piccaninnies" with "watermelon smiles" - and the Tory party had no investigation or anything like that. It was a bit like with Jimmy Savile at the BBC and in hospitals and schools - oh that's Jimmy, he does that kind of thing, don't take it seriously. Not the same actions of course, but the same moral philosophy.
There is a parallel between Johnson and Savile. In both cases a very powerful 'persona' allowed the (mostly hidden) 'person' to disarm and bamboozle and escape scrutiny.
Actually I was commenting on Mordaunt saying the UK has no veto on Turkish entry (afaik she still refuses to say that is wrong), and as an example (Sandpit provided another) of Mordaunt's lack of character. She strikes me as someone who has entered politics for the wrong reasons - in that way she seems like Johnson to me.
She may have misspoke in her precise wording, but her point was that the British people don't have a veto because they wouldn't be asked and the government's policy was to support Turkish membership.
She didn't even mis-speak, she was quite clear, repeatedly, in what she was saying. I just listened to her interview with Andrew Marr on this again, and she repeatedly makes the distinction that the voters would not be given a say in her view.
Which is correct. She was right, unequivocally. Those calling her lying either misunderstand what she said and are wrong, or understand it and are lying themselves about it.
Even if she said that it's a highly disingenuous comment. It can be addressed simply by putting the proposal to vote, as several other countries routinely do. In any case the public aren't directly consulted on anything else, so why pick out Turkish membership of the EU.
She was questioned about this on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show in May 2016.
He told Ms Mordaunt: "The British government does have a veto on Turkey joining so we don't have to let them join."
She replied: "No, it doesn't. We are not going to be able to have a say."
Try listening to what she actually said. She was explicitly clear that the voters would not get a say.
What part of "No it doesn't" have a veto do you not understand?
Yes there's no point with some people. They will swear black is white, not sure why.
Here's what she later said in defence of her 2016 claim that the UK didn't have a veto:
'Ms Mordaunt said: "No, we didn't Sophie have a veto because we couldn't use that provision in the treaty."'
Tesla's Autopilot system has been involved in more than 700 crashes in the US since 2019, including 17 fatalities, far more than previously reported, according to regulators."
700 autopilot crashes since 2019. c. 7m non-autopilot crashes per year in the US, so around 30m in the same period.
Perhaps Tesla Autopilot isn't as unsafe as is being suggested...?
What we don't know is whether the crashes were *because* of the autopilot making an error or whether it was coincidental to the fatality. I have it on my Tesla but rarely use it. I still find the lane changing quite unnerving.
The stat you want is number of crashes per mile driven.
I think autopilot still comes out very badly.
Also, don't automatically believe Tesla when they say whether the car involved in an incident was under autopilot control or not. It is widely believed that if the system senses an accident is about to occur, it switches off. They can therefore say that the driver was in charge, not autopilot, even if autopilot got the car into the mess in the first place.
Which is why the data logs from crashed cars should not be downloadable just by the manufacturer; they should be downloadable by the police in case they need using as evidence. (Then there's the problem of interpreting the logs as well...)
Christian 43.0% Muslim 12.5% Hindu 8.6% Sikh 4.1% Buddhist 0.9% Jewish 0.2% Others 0.7% No religion 23.7% Not answered 6.2%
pretty typical of UK then
Not at all actually. Much higher Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. Much, much lower no religion. And a bit lower Christian too.
The well above average Hindu vote in Uxbridge will likely boost Rishi and the Tories there
Why didn't the very similar Watford vote Conservative in the May?
Uxbridge still has a higher Hindu percentage than Watford.
8.6% vs 8.2%
That's the equivalent of 80 people. Let's say a sixth off for those who aren't eligible to vote (passport), a quarter off for under-18s, and then a quarter off the remainder for "can vote but won't".
Thirty-eight people.
Now let's say they go from a quarter voting Tory to three quarters voting Tory. Your Sunak Hindu swing is about twenty extra votes.
Now I come back to my question from the weekend. How many of the other 102,000 people in the constituency are 2019 Tory voters who for whatever reason don't want to vote for party lead by a Hindu man. Do you think you can find more or less than TWENTY voters?
If so, you're left with a net deficit due to people voting within racial/religious boundaries.
It might occur to you at this point that there are a great number of other reasons people might shift their vote to or from a party other than religion. If so, please step into that beam of sunlight that's broken through into your weird little psephological dungeon. You'll find that people are better than you suppose.
So still higher than Watford then.
And you deliberately and completely ignored EVERY other point I made as they don't suit your argument, so I will repeat them below:
'Watford was not Conservative held in 1997, Uxbridge was. Watford was only 50% Leave, Hillingdon was 56% Leave. The Tories also held Hillingdon council last year even if they don't control Watford council.
Maybe those strange brown Hindu people are like other human beings, though, and make up their own minds how to vote, rather than automatically preferring "one of their own kind".
I don't think you can conclude from that information that. I don't deny that at a demographic level somebody's religion can certainly be a *predictor* (to be used among other factors) of how they might vote, but even in the strongest correlation on there - Muslims and Labour - it's still only about half.
I really want to meet those Buddhists who supported the Brexit Party.
Maybe it was an assumption based on the number of supporters were bald big fat blokes?
Nah. They probably thought it was all about escaping from the illusions of and attachment to this world.
Senate GOP leaders break with House on Trump indictment https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4043338-senate-gop-leaders-break-with-house-on-trump-indictment/ ...Senate Republican leaders, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), are staying quiet about former President Trump’s indictment on 37 criminal charges, letting him twist in the wind and breaking with House Republican leaders who have rushed to Trump’s defense.
McConnell, who is careful not to comment on Trump or even repeat his name in public, has said to his GOP colleagues that he wants his party to turn the page on the former president, whom he sees as a flawed general election candidate and a drag on Senate Republican candidates. The Senate GOP leader’s top deputies — Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — have also indicated they don’t want Trump to win the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.
They, along with McConnell, are letting Trump’s legal troubles unfold without coming to the former president’s defense, in contrast to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who both issued statements Thursday criticizing the Justice Department before the indictment was unsealed to the public.
“They want him to go away, so they wouldn’t be very upset if this is the thing that finally takes him out,” a former Senate Republican aide said about the Senate Republican leaders’ silence on Trump’s indictment.
There are, of course, dishonourable exceptions, like Graham, Johnson, Vance etc.
Are you expecting another indictment soon for the Georgia shenanigans?
He was not obviously a terrorist sympathiser who hung out with antisemites. He promised to break the Brexit deadlock. And - although we didn't know it at the time - his support for Ukraine would be absolutely crucial in helping them resist the Russian invasion in 2022.
But his personal failings were always likely to pose... problems... Like Trump, he seems to believe the rules don't apply to him. (Which is a particular issue if you are insisting everyone else follows draconian rules you introduced.)
Just a reminder that Johnson is a racist c*** who called black people "piccaninnies" with "watermelon smiles" - and the Tory party had no investigation or anything like that. It was a bit like with Jimmy Savile at the BBC and in hospitals and schools - oh that's Jimmy, he does that kind of thing, don't take it seriously. Not the same actions of course, but the same moral philosophy.
I think that comparing anyone, apart from another child molester, to Savile is inappropriate.
And, Robert is quite correct that he was preferable to Corbyn.
Tesla's Autopilot system has been involved in more than 700 crashes in the US since 2019, including 17 fatalities, far more than previously reported, according to regulators."
700 autopilot crashes since 2019. c. 7m non-autopilot crashes per year in the US, so around 30m in the same period.
Perhaps Tesla Autopilot isn't as unsafe as is being suggested...?
What we don't know is whether the crashes were *because* of the autopilot making an error or whether it was coincidental to the fatality. I have it on my Tesla but rarely use it. I still find the lane changing quite unnerving.
The stat you want is number of crashes per mile driven.
I think autopilot still comes out very badly.
Also, don't automatically believe Tesla when they say whether the car involved in an incident was under autopilot control or not. It is widely believed that if the system senses an accident is about to occur, it switches off. They can therefore say that the driver was in charge, not autopilot, even if autopilot got the car into the mess in the first place.
Which is why the data logs from crashed cars should not be downloadable just by the manufacturer; they should be downloadable by the police in case they need using as evidence. (Then there's the problem of interpreting the logs as well...)
*widely believed* !!! Hmmm, yes of course! Widely believed by all those weird obsessive Tesla haters
I have to let you know. My Tesla is the most amazing car I have ever had. Performance, road holding acceleration and of course the innovative tech; better than my numerous BMWs, Mercedes including a Merc SL500 that I have had. But sure, you carry on hating and going with the "widely believed" if it helps you lol
This is a good thread - though it fails in turn to note that "the commentariat" was hardly unanimous in its (belatedly vanished) enthusiasm for Johnson. Seldon, I hope, has the good judgment to blush deeply when he rereads some of the shit he came out with.
But there's a question he doesn't address here, which needs more attention.
It troubled me about his book, too. So let me try to explain... 🧵
I posted this before. It’s an important thread.
Someone needs to explain how Seldon was so stupidly fooled in the first place.
Is it some kind of dysfunctional class affinity?
The last actually intellectual PM was Gordon Brown. And before that, I’d controversially nominate Margaret Thatcher.
Why is that controversial? Seems about right to me. She was smart and well educated.
There was a certain view that Thatcher was a kind of thick, lower middle class, bore. A kind of vindictive sunday school teacher. This was a view shared by some of the left AND right.
Thatcher had no interest in the liberal arts, and was from the wrong class. But her interests were more scientific, economic, and moral. She was interested in ideas, and she read widely to enlarge her understanding. That to me is the mark of an intellectual mind.
Compare her then, with Boris, who is from the “right” class and is more interested in the liberal arts than any predecessor since…Harold MacMillan?
But I would not describe Boris as an intellectual because he is just too lazy and actually not sustainably interested in much beyond himself. Boris is a dilettante.
I don’t know why Seldon couldn’t spot this, but I suspect class affinity and a form of snobbery/blindness quite prevalent in Britain.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
This is a good thread - though it fails in turn to note that "the commentariat" was hardly unanimous in its (belatedly vanished) enthusiasm for Johnson. Seldon, I hope, has the good judgment to blush deeply when he rereads some of the shit he came out with.
But there's a question he doesn't address here, which needs more attention.
It troubled me about his book, too. So let me try to explain... 🧵
I posted this before. It’s an important thread.
Someone needs to explain how Seldon was so stupidly fooled in the first place.
Is it some kind of dysfunctional class affinity?
The last actually intellectual PM was Gordon Brown. And before that, I’d controversially nominate Margaret Thatcher.
The idea that Gordon Brown was an intellectual just shows how good he was at personal branding. I'd place both Blair and Johnson above him on that score.
You are confusing “intellectual” with “intelligent”
Brown was more intellectual than Blair, though probably less intelligent.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
I would have thought that you as a Chartered Accountant could grasp this. One is numerically proven, the other is highly subjective.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
The Quakers, back in the day, chucked you out of the Society of Friends if you went bankrupt - they thought that it was cheating, fraud, and sinful, to go back on your contract and to diddle other folk out of their rightful money. They also worried about their reputation generally if there turned out to be bad eggs in their basket, so to speak. Quite often they would rally round and effectively restructure a failing Quaker's business if it were possible. Maybe something of that there.
This is a good thread - though it fails in turn to note that "the commentariat" was hardly unanimous in its (belatedly vanished) enthusiasm for Johnson. Seldon, I hope, has the good judgment to blush deeply when he rereads some of the shit he came out with.
But there's a question he doesn't address here, which needs more attention.
It troubled me about his book, too. So let me try to explain... 🧵
I posted this before. It’s an important thread.
Someone needs to explain how Seldon was so stupidly fooled in the first place.
Is it some kind of dysfunctional class affinity?
The last actually intellectual PM was Gordon Brown. And before that, I’d controversially nominate Margaret Thatcher.
The idea that Gordon Brown was an intellectual just shows how good he was at personal branding. I'd place both Blair and Johnson above him on that score.
You are confusing “intellectual” with “intelligent”
Brown was more intellectual than Blair, though probably less intelligent.
Brown. Blair on the other hand is much misrepresented.
Actually I was commenting on Mordaunt saying the UK has no veto on Turkish entry (afaik she still refuses to say that is wrong), and as an example (Sandpit provided another) of Mordaunt's lack of character. She strikes me as someone who has entered politics for the wrong reasons - in that way she seems like Johnson to me.
She may have misspoke in her precise wording, but her point was that the British people don't have a veto because they wouldn't be asked and the government's policy was to support Turkish membership.
She didn't even mis-speak, she was quite clear, repeatedly, in what she was saying. I just listened to her interview with Andrew Marr on this again, and she repeatedly makes the distinction that the voters would not be given a say in her view.
Which is correct. She was right, unequivocally. Those calling her lying either misunderstand what she said and are wrong, or understand it and are lying themselves about it.
Even if she said that it's a highly disingenuous comment. It can be addressed simply by putting the proposal to vote, as several other countries routinely do. In any case the public aren't directly consulted on anything else, so why pick out Turkish membership of the EU.
She was questioned about this on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show in May 2016.
He told Ms Mordaunt: "The British government does have a veto on Turkey joining so we don't have to let them join."
She replied: "No, it doesn't. We are not going to be able to have a say."
You seem a bit worried by Ms Mordaunt? It kind of reminds me of the apologists for Boris Johnson who desperately wanted us to believe that Starmer was just too boring to be able to have any chance of defeating their man.
The reality is that Penny Mordaunt is probably the only person currently on the Tory front bench who might (and I am saying might) have the electoral appeal to deliver us from having two terms of anti-business nanny-stateism from Starmer.
For that reason I quite like her and you fear her.
Not really, but if it makes you happy to have weird fantasies about strangers on the internet that you know absolutely nothing about then go ahead.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
There is nothing to stop even a bankrupt convicted serial killer being elected and serving as US President and most powerful man in the world in the US constitution of course
I know. And it's meant to be a strength, I suppose. Primacy of the people, voters must decide, bla bla. Not keen myself. Rather have some quality control in place.
Christian 43.0% Muslim 12.5% Hindu 8.6% Sikh 4.1% Buddhist 0.9% Jewish 0.2% Others 0.7% No religion 23.7% Not answered 6.2%
pretty typical of UK then
Not at all actually. Much higher Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. Much, much lower no religion. And a bit lower Christian too.
The well above average Hindu vote in Uxbridge will likely boost Rishi and the Tories there
Why didn't the very similar Watford vote Conservative in the May?
Uxbridge still has a higher Hindu percentage than Watford.
8.6% vs 8.2%
That's the equivalent of 80 people. Let's say a sixth off for those who aren't eligible to vote (passport), a quarter off for under-18s, and then a quarter off the remainder for "can vote but won't".
Thirty-eight people.
Now let's say they go from a quarter voting Tory to three quarters voting Tory. Your Sunak Hindu swing is about twenty extra votes.
Now I come back to my question from the weekend. How many of the other 102,000 people in the constituency are 2019 Tory voters who for whatever reason don't want to vote for party lead by a Hindu man. Do you think you can find more or less than TWENTY voters?
If so, you're left with a net deficit due to people voting within racial/religious boundaries.
It might occur to you at this point that there are a great number of other reasons people might shift their vote to or from a party other than religion. If so, please step into that beam of sunlight that's broken through into your weird little psephological dungeon. You'll find that people are better than you suppose.
So still higher than Watford then.
And you deliberately and completely ignored EVERY other point I made as they don't suit your argument, so I will repeat them below:
'Watford was not Conservative held in 1997, Uxbridge was. Watford was only 50% Leave, Hillingdon was 56% Leave. The Tories also held Hillingdon council last year even if they don't control Watford council.
Maybe those strange brown Hindu people are like other human beings, though, and make up their own minds how to vote, rather than automatically preferring "one of their own kind".
I don't think you can conclude from that information that. I don't deny that at a demographic level somebody's religion can certainly be a *predictor* (to be used among other factors) of how they might vote, but even in the strongest correlation on there - Muslims and Labour - it's still only about half.
Hounslow's last election was 2022 when the Roman Catholic Boris was PM not the Hindu Sunak.
Yes there will never be 100% correlation but the fact that on that chart Labour won about 50% of Muslims in 2019 and a narrow plurality of atheists and Christian Pentecostals (mainly Black churches) even when it lost by a landslide nationally tells you those groups lean Labour.
While the bigger than average Conservative lead amongst Jews and Anglicans, Baptists and URC and Methodists tells you those groups lean Conservative. Hindus, Roman Catholics and Church of Scotland and Buddhists and Orthodox closer to swing voters.
LDs meanwhile seem to do best amongst Buddhists and Baptists, Farage's Party amongst evangelicals, Methodists and Anglicans, the SNP unsurprisingly amongst Church of Scotland voters
Though of course as mentioned the Leicester result in the local elections suggests Rishi is shifting Hindus from swing voters to lean Conservative
Isn't the lesson from Leicester more "don't have a controversial purge of your party"?
That's not to deny that there seems to be a genuine Hindu vote effect benefiting the Conservatives (see Harrow last year) but it's simplistic to say it's happened since Rishi took over, and perhaps optimistic to think it will save the blue team in Uxbridge.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
Surely, the bar is only for so long as the bankruptcy order is in place. I don't think it's forever.
The Quakers started many of the UK's most financial institutions and banks, but ran them utterly, utterly differently from 21st century Thatcherism.
Quaker industrialists also had a good record of caring for their workers, like Cadbury, and almost the absolute opposite of Bezos, with his robotically monitored, and nightmare-for-workers, "fulfillment" warehouses.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
Financial bankruptcy hasn't been a ground for disqualification for MPs for 20 years now. There are limited cases where a bankruptcy restriction order is in place, but that's basically a case where criminal offences have been committed and that's a tiny proportion of bankruptcies. Adam Afriyie was declared bankrupt quite recently, for instance, and is still an MP.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Semi joking. Was more thinking about the general point. Eg you are wrong on your absolutism about this. There are things which disqualify you from being an MP. It isn't just up to the voters.
Tesla's Autopilot system has been involved in more than 700 crashes in the US since 2019, including 17 fatalities, far more than previously reported, according to regulators."
700 autopilot crashes since 2019. c. 7m non-autopilot crashes per year in the US, so around 30m in the same period.
Perhaps Tesla Autopilot isn't as unsafe as is being suggested...?
What we don't know is whether the crashes were *because* of the autopilot making an error or whether it was coincidental to the fatality. I have it on my Tesla but rarely use it. I still find the lane changing quite unnerving.
The stat you want is number of crashes per mile driven.
I think autopilot still comes out very badly.
Also, don't automatically believe Tesla when they say whether the car involved in an incident was under autopilot control or not. It is widely believed that if the system senses an accident is about to occur, it switches off. They can therefore say that the driver was in charge, not autopilot, even if autopilot got the car into the mess in the first place.
Which is why the data logs from crashed cars should not be downloadable just by the manufacturer; they should be downloadable by the police in case they need using as evidence. (Then there's the problem of interpreting the logs as well...)
*widely believed* !!! Hmmm, yes of course! Widely believed by all those weird obsessive Tesla haters
I have to let you know. My Tesla is the most amazing car I have ever had. Performance, road holding acceleration and of course the innovative tech; better than my numerous BMWs, Mercedes including a Merc SL500 that I have had. But sure, you carry on hating and going with the "widely believed" if it helps you lol
No. I believe the relevant authorities in the US called Tesla out over just this.
I’d have concerns about Parliament telling me that anyone was precluded from standing for parliament. I have no objection to Parliament deciding that a particular group……. convicted felons or similar….. cannot stand. But one individual because they’ve upset Parliament……. no.
Actually I was commenting on Mordaunt saying the UK has no veto on Turkish entry (afaik she still refuses to say that is wrong), and as an example (Sandpit provided another) of Mordaunt's lack of character. She strikes me as someone who has entered politics for the wrong reasons - in that way she seems like Johnson to me.
She may have misspoke in her precise wording, but her point was that the British people don't have a veto because they wouldn't be asked and the government's policy was to support Turkish membership.
She didn't even mis-speak, she was quite clear, repeatedly, in what she was saying. I just listened to her interview with Andrew Marr on this again, and she repeatedly makes the distinction that the voters would not be given a say in her view.
Which is correct. She was right, unequivocally. Those calling her lying either misunderstand what she said and are wrong, or understand it and are lying themselves about it.
Even if she said that it's a highly disingenuous comment. It can be addressed simply by putting the proposal to vote, as several other countries routinely do. In any case the public aren't directly consulted on anything else, so why pick out Turkish membership of the EU.
She was questioned about this on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show in May 2016.
He told Ms Mordaunt: "The British government does have a veto on Turkey joining so we don't have to let them join."
She replied: "No, it doesn't. We are not going to be able to have a say."
You seem a bit worried by Ms Mordaunt? It kind of reminds me of the apologists for Boris Johnson who desperately wanted us to believe that Starmer was just too boring to be able to have any chance of defeating their man.
The reality is that Penny Mordaunt is probably the only person currently on the Tory front bench who might (and I am saying might) have the electoral appeal to deliver us from having two terms of anti-business nanny-stateism from Starmer.
For that reason I quite like her and you fear her.
Not really, but if it makes you happy to have weird fantasies about strangers on the internet that you know absolutely nothing about then go ahead.
I am very happy thanks (you are so kind to enquire), and you may be assured that any weird fantasies I have about strangers on the internet definitely don't include someone so dull, bereft of imagination and so transparent in their simplistic political perspectives such as yourself.
You do fear her. It is so obvious. Try being less dull and partisan and admit it. You might even find it liberating
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
Financial bankruptcy hasn't been a grounds for disqualification for MPs for 20 years now. There are limited cases where a bankruptcy restriction order is in place, but that's basically a case where criminal offences have been committed and that's a tiny proportion of bankruptcies. Adam Afriyie was declared bankrupt quite recently, for instance, and is still an MP.
Ah ok. I thought it seemed harsh and also illogical. However the relevant gov site still states that a bankrupt person can't stand for parliament?
I’d have concerns about Parliament telling me that anyone was precluded from standing for parliament. I have no objection to Parliament deciding that a particular group……. convicted felons or similar….. cannot stand. But one individual because they’ve upset Parliament……. no.
I think it's more Labour want a vote so the Tory party have to own whatever punishment the committee hands out...
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
Financial bankruptcy hasn't been a grounds for disqualification for MPs for 20 years now. There are limited cases where a bankruptcy restriction order is in place, but that's basically a case where criminal offences have been committed and that's a tiny proportion of bankruptcies. Adam Afriyie was declared bankrupt quite recently, for instance, and is still an MP.
Ah ok. I thought it seemed harsh and also illogical. However the relevant gov site still states that a bankrupt person can't stand for parliament?
Not sure what the reference for that is, or the age of the document. But it's incorrect now and has been for many years.
On a different topic, a former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee and another member of the US establishment writes, unremarked on the Politico website, and unshared and retweeted by any other sites, as if it's just another regular and day-today topic : "If the U.S government has UFO crash materials, it's time to reveal them."
Far be it from me to provide actual evidence on Ofsted, but this is what the report on the school in Reading that led to the tragic suicide actually says on safeguarding:
Leaders have a weak understanding of safeguarding requirements and procedures. They have not exercised sufficient leadership or oversight of this important work. As a result, records of safeguarding concerns and the tracking of subsequent actions are poor. Leaders have not ensured that all required employment checks are complete for some staff employed at the school. These weaknesses pose potential risks to pupils.
Now, one can argue against the inspection framework and the emphasis on safeguarding, but I suspect we'd all agree that not completing all the required employment checks is pretty poor.
i Take it then you agree that OFSTED, which does not currently carry out updated safeguarding checks on its inspectors with the result that a number of individuals who have been removed from posts for inappropriate behaviour are still working as inspectors, is 'pretty poor?'
Mrs Capitano has been DSL (Designated Safeguarding Lead) at her last two schools and has mentored others on it. She was at the Oxfordshire safeguarding conference last week. I'd post the agenda but it would just make PB too depressing for a sunny Monday morning. Let's just say that an entire day on child sexual abuse is probably (hopefully) no-one's idea of fun.
A few points I've picked up from her, and from seeing our local primary get failed by Ofsted on safeguarding issues.
Safeguarding (at primary level at least) is almost entirely about home issues, not school issues. It is directly correlated with deprivation levels in the school catchment. It is basically teachers acting as social workers, because there aren't any/enough social workers. It is absolutely usual to have "team around the child" meetings for home problems which are nonetheless chaired by the head or the DSL because childrens' social care at county is under-resourced.
As such, a school's performance on safeguarding is probably not relevant to the majority of kids at the school or their parents. 99% of kids at her current school, and 90% at the previous one, have no cause to appear on the safeguarding radar at all.
So for that reason, I agree with those protesting about Ofsted's single-word judgements. For most parents/kids, it's misleading to add a single-word judgement where a failure on safeguarding masks excellent teaching. Just publish individual scores/levels without aggregating them into one single rating.
However...
Fulfilling your safeguarding responsibilities isn't really that hard. (Fixing the underlying social issues is, but Ofsted doesn't rate you on that!) If a school is neglecting its safeguarding responsibilities, the head is incompetent. And an incompetent head generally doesn't run a good school.
That was one of the reasons we chose not to send Capitano Junior to our local primary, and went out-of-catchment instead. It had just been failed by Ofsted on safeguarding. The school's line was that it was a "paperwork mistake". It turns out that the head had just told a close-to-retirement teacher to become DSL and hadn't checked at all whether she was doing her job. Surprise surprise, she wasn't. We looked a bit closer and this couldn't-care-less attitude permeated all the way through the school. Four years on, the school has got through two permanent heads, two temporaries, and might slowly be hauling itself back to an acceptable standard. Meanwhile, the school we did choose is not remotely "Ofsteddy" - it's a liberal little village primary where the kids are given space to develop - but the head is supremely competent and knows damn well that all her paperwork is in order, and that the troubled kids are being monitored and issues passed up to county.
Interesting. Your last sentence is critical. If competent leaders are doing the right thing in regard to looking after all their kids (for the kids' sake and not for Ofsted's), then they shouldn't have to worry about Ofsted at all.
but OFSTED themselves do not do the right thing in looking after children. At the moment, they have no procedures to blow the whistle on safeguarding concerns about inspectors. And as noted above, due to their lack of due diligence there are inspectors who are unsafe around children.
To be honest with you this is an altogether more serious problem than a few dud reports which is inevitable given Spielman devised the inspection framework and she's an idiot (it is linked to her - she literally doesn't know what safeguarding is, or care much about it as far as anyone can judge).
If OFSTED held themselves to their own standards, they would be inadequate.
But whom to alert? The Secretary of State and the DfE are trying to wash their hands of this. Possibly illegally.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
Surely, the bar is only for so long as the bankruptcy order is in place. I don't think it's forever.
But on the general point - what is so especially heinous about bankruptcy that it precludes you standing for parliament? Why does it get the special mention in the Rules?
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
Surely, the bar is only for so long as the bankruptcy order is in place. I don't think it's forever.
But on the general point - what is so especially heinous about bankruptcy that it precludes you standing for parliament? Why does it get the special mention in the Rules?
How much are we allowed to say about the alleged parentage of Charlotte Kathryn Tranter Owen (born 1993)? Twitter people have put a good case for her being the daughter of two specific people, but Twitter is a bullshit farm and Ms. Owen is a real person. I'm a bit uncomfortable about speculation about a living breathing person and I need to know what the boundaries are here.
Wait for a reputable UK news source.
As we learned from Sally Bercow and Lord McAlpine, Twitter is a cesspool that costs people money.
Tesla's Autopilot system has been involved in more than 700 crashes in the US since 2019, including 17 fatalities, far more than previously reported, according to regulators."
700 autopilot crashes since 2019. c. 7m non-autopilot crashes per year in the US, so around 30m in the same period.
Perhaps Tesla Autopilot isn't as unsafe as is being suggested...?
What we don't know is whether the crashes were *because* of the autopilot making an error or whether it was coincidental to the fatality. I have it on my Tesla but rarely use it. I still find the lane changing quite unnerving.
The stat you want is number of crashes per mile driven.
I think autopilot still comes out very badly.
Also, don't automatically believe Tesla when they say whether the car involved in an incident was under autopilot control or not. It is widely believed that if the system senses an accident is about to occur, it switches off. They can therefore say that the driver was in charge, not autopilot, even if autopilot got the car into the mess in the first place.
Which is why the data logs from crashed cars should not be downloadable just by the manufacturer; they should be downloadable by the police in case they need using as evidence. (Then there's the problem of interpreting the logs as well...)
*widely believed* !!! Hmmm, yes of course! Widely believed by all those weird obsessive Tesla haters
I have to let you know. My Tesla is the most amazing car I have ever had. Performance, road holding acceleration and of course the innovative tech; better than my numerous BMWs, Mercedes including a Merc SL500 that I have had. But sure, you carry on hating and going with the "widely believed" if it helps you lol
No. I believe the relevant authorities in the US called Tesla out over just this.
*I believe*? More equivocation. Is this belief based on some bloke at the pub who is part of the *widely believed* demographic perhaps?
Generally the relevant authorities aka regulators will ban a technology if it is proven to be unsafe. Not happened yet. Will it? I can't say, but there are millions of Tesla users using it quite safely and the data suggests that the AI based decision making is quicker and better than the average human. Is it infallible? Probably not.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
I would have thought that you as a Chartered Accountant could grasp this. One is numerically proven, the other is highly subjective.
Ok, so the comparison to 'moral' bankruptcy is just a muse. Forgetting that, the question is more about what should bar you from being an MP regardless of what the voters might think. I looked it up and there isn't much apart from being bankrupt. I'm wondering why this is? Why aren't there more disqualifiers? And why is bankruptcy on there? What's so uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt? Is it some legacy Rule that harks back to Top Hats and Counting Houses and the Corn Laws?
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
I would have thought that you as a Chartered Accountant could grasp this. One is numerically proven, the other is highly subjective.
Ok, so the comparison to 'moral' bankruptcy is just a muse. Forgetting that, the question is more about what should bar you from being an MP regardless of what the voters might think. I looked it up and there isn't much apart from being bankrupt. I'm wondering why this is? Why aren't there more disqualifiers? And why is bankruptcy on there? What's so uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt? Is it some legacy Rule that harks back to Top Hats and Counting Houses and the Corn Laws?
I don't know what's uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt.
But it does raise an interesting question: If the only bar to being an MP (save bankruptcy, which I am putting aside as an interesting quirk for now) is the view of the voters, we need to make sure the voters have the tools to remove an MP. FPTP gives that. Not many other systems do.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
I would have thought that you as a Chartered Accountant could grasp this. One is numerically proven, the other is highly subjective.
Ok, so the comparison to 'moral' bankruptcy is just a muse. Forgetting that, the question is more about what should bar you from being an MP regardless of what the voters might think. I looked it up and there isn't much apart from being bankrupt. I'm wondering why this is? Why aren't there more disqualifiers? And why is bankruptcy on there? What's so uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt? Is it some legacy Rule that harks back to Top Hats and Counting Houses and the Corn Laws?
Again, this is not true and hasn't been for two decades.
In the more distant past, there was a very widespread view that bankruptcy was essentially akin to criminality, hence workhouses and debtors prisons. It was extremely heavily stigmatised, and seen as particularly inappropriate for someone with a role in managing the finances of the nation.
But, once again for emphasis, that simply isn't the rule any more, and indeed there is at least one bankrupt MP sitting in Parliament right now.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
Surely, the bar is only for so long as the bankruptcy order is in place. I don't think it's forever.
But on the general point - what is so especially heinous about bankruptcy that it precludes you standing for parliament? Why does it get the special mention in the Rules?
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
I would have thought that you as a Chartered Accountant could grasp this. One is numerically proven, the other is highly subjective.
Ok, so the comparison to 'moral' bankruptcy is just a muse. Forgetting that, the question is more about what should bar you from being an MP regardless of what the voters might think. I looked it up and there isn't much apart from being bankrupt. I'm wondering why this is? Why aren't there more disqualifiers? And why is bankruptcy on there? What's so uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt? Is it some legacy Rule that harks back to Top Hats and Counting Houses and the Corn Laws?
I don't know what's uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt.
But it does raise an interesting question: If the only bar to being an MP (save bankruptcy, which I am putting aside as an interesting quirk for now) is the view of the voters, we need to make sure the voters have the tools to remove an MP. FPTP gives that. Not many other systems do.
Except that FPTP also gives us safe seats that are in most cases only open to change in theory but rarely in practice
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
These sorts of media reports are often unreliable. I would guess people are repeating the wildest ideas that got mentioned, a bit like with the UFO nonsense.
On a different topic, a former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee and another member of the US establishment writes, unremarked on the Politico website, and unshared and retweeted by any other sites, as if it's just another regular and day-today topic : "If the U.S government has UFO crash materials, it's time to reveal them."
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
Surely, the bar is only for so long as the bankruptcy order is in place. I don't think it's forever.
But on the general point - what is so especially heinous about bankruptcy that it precludes you standing for parliament? Why does it get the special mention in the Rules?
That's a reference to "bankruptcy restriction orders" which is relevant to a tiny proportion of bankruptcies where there is a very significant degree of culpability. It isn't technically at the criminal level, but it is very close and is a specific court order dealing with situations where the bankrupt is being prevented from entering into almost any credit agreement as there is so little prospect of them paying it back, from running any company and so on.
Most bankruptcies don't come anywhere close to that.
Interesting it lists bankruptcies in Northern Ireland though. I assume Northern Ireland just wasn't subject to the wider insolvency law reforms under the Enterprise Act 2002, so it is an anomaly.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
I would have thought that you as a Chartered Accountant could grasp this. One is numerically proven, the other is highly subjective.
Ok, so the comparison to 'moral' bankruptcy is just a muse. Forgetting that, the question is more about what should bar you from being an MP regardless of what the voters might think. I looked it up and there isn't much apart from being bankrupt. I'm wondering why this is? Why aren't there more disqualifiers? And why is bankruptcy on there? What's so uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt? Is it some legacy Rule that harks back to Top Hats and Counting Houses and the Corn Laws?
I don't know what's uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt.
But it does raise an interesting question: If the only bar to being an MP (save bankruptcy, which I am putting aside as an interesting quirk for now) is the view of the voters, we need to make sure the voters have the tools to remove an MP. FPTP gives that. Not many other systems do.
Plus being in prison at the time you are elected for a sentence of a year or more, being under 18, being a serving member of the House of Lords, Senedd or Stormont or (by convention) the royal family, not being a British or Irish citizen or Commonwealth citizen with leave to remain in the UK, or being in the police, armed forces, civil service or judiciary bar you from being an MP
@SirNorfolkPassmore - Ok you seem certain and I'm going to believe you rather than that government website. Bankrupts CAN stand for parliament. It's a wrap.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
I would have thought that you as a Chartered Accountant could grasp this. One is numerically proven, the other is highly subjective.
Ok, so the comparison to 'moral' bankruptcy is just a muse. Forgetting that, the question is more about what should bar you from being an MP regardless of what the voters might think. I looked it up and there isn't much apart from being bankrupt. I'm wondering why this is? Why aren't there more disqualifiers? And why is bankruptcy on there? What's so uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt? Is it some legacy Rule that harks back to Top Hats and Counting Houses and the Corn Laws?
I don't know what's uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt.
But it does raise an interesting question: If the only bar to being an MP (save bankruptcy, which I am putting aside as an interesting quirk for now) is the view of the voters, we need to make sure the voters have the tools to remove an MP. FPTP gives that. Not many other systems do.
Except that FPTP also gives us safe seats that are in most cases only open to change in theory but rarely in practice
True. But in the case of an MP the voters have truly taken against, no seat is safe. Exhibit 1 is Neil Hamilton, 1997.
Exhibit 2 is Michael Portillo and David Mellor, 1997. Granted the seats weren't as safe, but imagine a list system in London: both these characters would be up near the top of the list and extremely difficult to dislodge.
My view is that even with very safe seats it is easier to dislodge a wrong'un with FPTP than with a list system.
Of course, STV gives the voters even more control.
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
I would have thought that you as a Chartered Accountant could grasp this. One is numerically proven, the other is highly subjective.
Ok, so the comparison to 'moral' bankruptcy is just a muse. Forgetting that, the question is more about what should bar you from being an MP regardless of what the voters might think. I looked it up and there isn't much apart from being bankrupt. I'm wondering why this is? Why aren't there more disqualifiers? And why is bankruptcy on there? What's so uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt? Is it some legacy Rule that harks back to Top Hats and Counting Houses and the Corn Laws?
I don't know what's uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt.
But it does raise an interesting question: If the only bar to being an MP (save bankruptcy, which I am putting aside as an interesting quirk for now) is the view of the voters, we need to make sure the voters have the tools to remove an MP. FPTP gives that. Not many other systems do.
Plus being in prison at the time you are elected for a sentence of over a year, being under 18, being a serving member of the House of Lords, Senedd or Stormont or (by convention) the royal family, not being a British or Irish citizen or Commonwealth citizen with leave to remain in the UK, or being in the police, armed forces, civil service, judiciary bar you from being an MP
Those are very different restrictions, though. There's no suggestion being a judge is reprehensible, just that it would be inappropriate to combine with being a parliamentary candidate given the central requirement of the job to be and be seen to be strictly impartial.
This is a good thread - though it fails in turn to note that "the commentariat" was hardly unanimous in its (belatedly vanished) enthusiasm for Johnson. Seldon, I hope, has the good judgment to blush deeply when he rereads some of the shit he came out with.
But there's a question he doesn't address here, which needs more attention.
It troubled me about his book, too. So let me try to explain... 🧵
I posted this before. It’s an important thread.
Someone needs to explain how Seldon was so stupidly fooled in the first place.
Is it some kind of dysfunctional class affinity?
The last actually intellectual PM was Gordon Brown. And before that, I’d controversially nominate Margaret Thatcher.
The idea that Gordon Brown was an intellectual just shows how good he was at personal branding. I'd place both Blair and Johnson above him on that score.
You are confusing “intellectual” with “intelligent”
Brown was more intellectual than Blair, though probably less intelligent.
Our most intellectual PMs were probably Gladstone and Disraeli, Macmillan, Brown and Churchill. Gladstone for one had 20,000 books in his personal library. That does not mean they had the highest IQ though or were most intelligent. Thatcher and Blair, Peel, Salisbury, Baldwin and Lloyd George and Attlee and arguably Wilson and Cameron in terms of decision making on the facts they faced were often very good but they were not great intellectuals
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
I would have thought that you as a Chartered Accountant could grasp this. One is numerically proven, the other is highly subjective.
Ok, so the comparison to 'moral' bankruptcy is just a muse. Forgetting that, the question is more about what should bar you from being an MP regardless of what the voters might think. I looked it up and there isn't much apart from being bankrupt. I'm wondering why this is? Why aren't there more disqualifiers? And why is bankruptcy on there? What's so uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt? Is it some legacy Rule that harks back to Top Hats and Counting Houses and the Corn Laws?
I would make gullibility to be unforgivable and have them all take a polygraph. Disqualification would be certain on the basis of answering "yes" to any of the three following questions:
"Do you believe in alien abduction?" "Do you believe that the NHS was ever the "envy of the world"?" "Did you believe Boris Johnson's statement to the house on Partygate?"
You celebrate that fact - while everyone else commenting on it on twitter are going - HTF did this end up being prosecuted given the sheer number of mitigating circumstances and screw ups absolutely every...
On a different topic, a former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee and another member of the US establishment writes, unremarked on the Politico website, and unshared and retweeted by any other sites, as if it's just another regular and day-today topic : "If the U.S government has UFO crash materials, it's time to reveal them."
So? They don’t have, so nothing will be forthcoming. People are being hoodwinked by some of the usual players. Bigelow, he of the Skinwalker Ranch nonsense, is behind a lot of this.
The sum total of all the ‘good stuff’ videos released this year have all been explained. I get that people want to believe. I really do. But there’s nothing behind the curtain folks.
This is a good thread - though it fails in turn to note that "the commentariat" was hardly unanimous in its (belatedly vanished) enthusiasm for Johnson. Seldon, I hope, has the good judgment to blush deeply when he rereads some of the shit he came out with.
But there's a question he doesn't address here, which needs more attention.
It troubled me about his book, too. So let me try to explain... 🧵
I posted this before. It’s an important thread.
Someone needs to explain how Seldon was so stupidly fooled in the first place.
Is it some kind of dysfunctional class affinity?
The last actually intellectual PM was Gordon Brown. And before that, I’d controversially nominate Margaret Thatcher.
The idea that Gordon Brown was an intellectual just shows how good he was at personal branding. I'd place both Blair and Johnson above him on that score.
You are confusing “intellectual” with “intelligent”
Brown was more intellectual than Blair, though probably less intelligent.
Our most intellectual PMs were probably Gladstone and Disraeli, Macmillan, Brown and Churchill. Gladstone for one had 20,000 books in his personal library. That does not mean they had the highest IQ though or were most intelligent. Thatcher and Blair, Peel, Salisbury, Baldwin and Lloyd George and Attlee and arguably Wilson and Cameron in terms of decision making on the facts they faced were often very good but they were not great intellectuals
You are almost utterly, utterly wrong.
There were just four genuine intellectuals who became PM: Brown (whom you noted) Wilson, Balfour and Pitt the Younger (like Sunak, he used to amuse himself by making mathematical equations of soldiers wheeling).
Pitt was brilliant. Wilson was very successful. The others, well...
💥Chopper’s Politics Newsletter: Boris Johnson could be banned for life from Parliament
- Privileges report due in next 48 hours - MPs' vote in the middle of next week - Labour MPs might amend motion to add in a permanent ban from Commons. Johnson's team say this is not possible
Would need at least 100 Conservative MPs to vote with the Opposition for it, they would also have to risk deselection by furious Boris loyalists amongst their party Association executive and local membership
Only 40 or so Tory MPs need side with the opposition.
It would be utterly undemocratic to impose a permanent suspension on anyone.
The media reports surrounding the committee in recent days have gone completely off the deep end, from suggesting permanent bans to suspending people who merely criticise the committee. Complete banana republic stuff.
The public chooses who they elect. Boris is never going to be elected ever again. In some bizarre parallel universe where he did, that's the voters choice, and must be respected.
The public chooses, yes, but there are things which legally prevent a person serving as an MP. One of them is being bankrupt. At present this is just financially but I can see a good case for it to also mean 'morally'. In which case Boris Johnson certainly should be given a lifetime ban. I mean, how come being on your uppers gets you banned from parliament but being morally bankrupt is absolutely fine? It should be the other way around, I'd have thought.
I really hope you are joking.
Should Rishi Sunak be allowed to whip his MPs to deem Keir Starmer as "morally bankrupt"?
It's up to the voters and the voters alone to determine their own morals.
Plenty of MP's are, and have been, morally bankrupt. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Jeremy Thorpe, Jeremy Corbyn, Mike Hancock, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, John Bercow, Andrew Bridgen, and Boris Johnson. In each case, I think it should be for the voters to pass judgement.
But that isn't the case if you're financially bankrupt. It bars you. What's the logic there? Why is financial bankruptcy deemed worse (in an MP) than moral bankruptcy?
I would have thought that you as a Chartered Accountant could grasp this. One is numerically proven, the other is highly subjective.
Ok, so the comparison to 'moral' bankruptcy is just a muse. Forgetting that, the question is more about what should bar you from being an MP regardless of what the voters might think. I looked it up and there isn't much apart from being bankrupt. I'm wondering why this is? Why aren't there more disqualifiers? And why is bankruptcy on there? What's so uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt? Is it some legacy Rule that harks back to Top Hats and Counting Houses and the Corn Laws?
I don't know what's uniquely reprehensible about being bankrupt.
But it does raise an interesting question: If the only bar to being an MP (save bankruptcy, which I am putting aside as an interesting quirk for now) is the view of the voters, we need to make sure the voters have the tools to remove an MP. FPTP gives that. Not many other systems do.
Except that FPTP also gives us safe seats that are in most cases only open to change in theory but rarely in practice
True. But in the case of an MP the voters have truly taken against, no seat is safe. Exhibit 1 is Neil Hamilton, 1997.
Exhibit 2 is Michael Portillo and David Mellor, 1997. Granted the seats weren't as safe, but imagine a list system in London: both these characters would be up near the top of the list and extremely difficult to dislodge.
My view is that even with very safe seats it is easier to dislodge a wrong'un with FPTP than with a list system.
Of course, STV gives the voters even more control.
Dan Hannan once (2009 I think, and long since lost in the old Telegraph blogs pages) wrote a really good piece on voting systems, that started along the lines of “Next week, I will be re-elected to my seat in the European Parliament!”. He was #1 on the Tory list in the South East region, which elected 12 MEPs, so there was literally no chance to kick him out if you didn’t like him. Party lists are the worst possible system for electing people.
Hannan finally got his wish to be kicked out of the European Parliament a decade later, only to be elevated to the Lords alongside several other redundant MEPs!
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Clinton-Davis,_Baron_Clinton-Davis
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4043338-senate-gop-leaders-break-with-house-on-trump-indictment/
...Senate Republican leaders, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), are staying quiet about former President Trump’s indictment on 37 criminal charges, letting him twist in the wind and breaking with House Republican leaders who have rushed to Trump’s defense.
McConnell, who is careful not to comment on Trump or even repeat his name in public, has said to his GOP colleagues that he wants his party to turn the page on the former president, whom he sees as a flawed general election candidate and a drag on Senate Republican candidates.
The Senate GOP leader’s top deputies — Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — have also indicated they don’t want Trump to win the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.
They, along with McConnell, are letting Trump’s legal troubles unfold without coming to the former president’s defense, in contrast to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who both issued statements Thursday criticizing the Justice Department before the indictment was unsealed to the public.
“They want him to go away, so they wouldn’t be very upset if this is the thing that finally takes him out,” a former Senate Republican aide said about the Senate Republican leaders’ silence on Trump’s indictment.
There are, of course, dishonourable exceptions, like Graham, Johnson, Vance etc.
But take a look at this:
From here http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/religion-and-party-preference-in-2019/
I don't think you can conclude from that information that. I don't deny that at a demographic level somebody's religion can certainly be a *predictor* (to be used among other factors) of how they might vote, but even in the strongest correlation on there - Muslims and Labour - it's still only about half.
6 for Ref + UKIP means 37% for the right too.
Opinium earlier had LLG at 59%.
Perhaps Tesla Autopilot isn't as unsafe as is being suggested...?
One bastard nominates another bastard for a peerage. The only shock is that it was rejected...
Yes there will never be 100% correlation but the fact that on that chart Labour won about 50% of Muslims in 2019 and a narrow plurality of atheists and Christian Pentecostals (mainly Black churches) even when it lost by a landslide nationally tells you those groups lean Labour.
While the bigger than average Conservative lead amongst Jews and Anglicans, Baptists and URC and Methodists tells you those groups lean Conservative. Hindus, Roman Catholics and Church of Scotland and Buddhists and Orthodox closer to swing voters.
LDs meanwhile seem to do best amongst Buddhists and Baptists, Farage's Party amongst evangelicals, Methodists and Anglicans, the SNP unsurprisingly amongst Church of Scotland voters
Germans beat Tesla to autonomous L3 driving in the Golden State
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz, my friends all have Teslas...
https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/09/mercedes_california_tesla/
Autopilot has two issues:
*) It is being beta-tested in a live environment.
*) It is being sold as being something it is not, and better than it is.
Both are utterly within Tesla's control.
The love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.
Funny none of this came to attention when Owen’s name was first linked with Johnson’s resignation honours back last November
https://mediaproxy.snopes.com/width/1200/https://media.snopes.com/2020/07/Featured-Image-Templates53.png
But they do actually define "propriety" -
The Commission takes the view that in this context, propriety means:
i) the individual should be in good standing in the community in general and with the public regulatory authorities in particular; and
ii) the past conduct of the nominee would not reasonably be regarded as bringing the House of Lords into disrepute.
So unless it's obvious to everyone you're a crim, you'll likely sail through i).
ii)... Your guess is as good as mine.
But I hope we can all agree now that Rishi would be wrong to take the good Hindus of Uxbridge and South Ruislip for granted.
I think autopilot still comes out very badly.
Here's what she later said in defence of her 2016 claim that the UK didn't have a veto:
'Ms Mordaunt said: "No, we didn't Sophie have a veto because we couldn't use that provision in the treaty."'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/62185058
Which is why the data logs from crashed cars should not be downloadable just by the manufacturer; they should be downloadable by the police in case they need using as evidence. (Then there's the problem of interpreting the logs as well...)
And, Robert is quite correct that he was preferable to Corbyn.
I have to let you know. My Tesla is the most amazing car I have ever had. Performance, road holding acceleration and of course the innovative tech; better than my numerous BMWs, Mercedes including a Merc SL500 that I have had. But sure, you carry on hating and going with the "widely believed" if it helps you lol
Thatcher had no interest in the liberal arts, and was from the wrong class. But her interests were more scientific, economic, and moral. She was interested in ideas, and she read widely to enlarge her understanding. That to me is the mark of an intellectual mind.
Compare her then, with Boris, who is from the “right” class and is more interested in the liberal arts than any predecessor since…Harold MacMillan?
But I would not describe Boris as an intellectual because he is just too lazy and actually not sustainably interested in much beyond himself. Boris is a dilettante.
I don’t know why Seldon couldn’t spot this, but I suspect class affinity and a form of snobbery/blindness quite prevalent in Britain.
Brown was more intellectual than Blair, though probably less intelligent.
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1668281634154504192?s=20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Leicester_City_Council_election
That's not to deny that there seems to be a genuine Hindu vote effect benefiting the Conservatives (see Harrow last year) but it's simplistic to say it's happened since Rishi took over, and perhaps optimistic to think it will save the blue team in Uxbridge.
Quaker industrialists also had a good record of caring for their workers, like Cadbury, and almost the absolute opposite of Bezos, with his robotically monitored, and nightmare-for-workers, "fulfillment" warehouses.
But one individual because they’ve upset Parliament……. no.
You do fear her. It is so obvious. Try being less dull and partisan and admit it. You might even find it liberating
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/03/ufo-crash-materials-intelligence-00100077
Westminster VI (11 June):
Labour 44% (–)
Conservative 30% (–)
Liberal Democrat 13% (+1)
Reform UK 6% (+1)
Green 4% (-1)
Scottish National Party 3% (–)
Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 4 June
https://twitter.com/redfieldwilton/status/1668287050162814979?s=46
I've been working all day today, so I've only just caught up with your comments here: i Take it then you agree that OFSTED, which does not currently carry out updated safeguarding checks on its
inspectors with the result that a number of individuals who have been removed from posts for inappropriate behaviour are still working as inspectors, is 'pretty poor?' but OFSTED themselves do not do the right thing in looking after children. At the moment, they have no procedures to blow the whistle on safeguarding concerns about inspectors. And as noted above, due to their lack of due diligence there are inspectors who are unsafe around children.
To be honest with you this is an altogether more serious problem than a few dud reports which is inevitable given Spielman devised the inspection framework and she's an idiot (it is linked to her - she literally doesn't know what safeguarding is, or care much about it as far as anyone can judge).
If OFSTED held themselves to their own standards, they would be inadequate.
But whom to alert? The Secretary of State and the DfE are trying to wash their hands of this. Possibly illegally.
Who guards the guards?
Generally the relevant authorities aka regulators will ban a technology if it is proven to be unsafe. Not happened yet. Will it? I can't say, but there are millions of Tesla users using it quite safely and the data suggests that the AI based decision making is quicker and better than the average human. Is it infallible? Probably not.
But it does raise an interesting question: If the only bar to being an MP (save bankruptcy, which I am putting aside as an interesting quirk for now) is the view of the voters, we need to make sure the voters have the tools to remove an MP. FPTP gives that. Not many other systems do.
In the more distant past, there was a very widespread view that bankruptcy was essentially akin to criminality, hence workhouses and debtors prisons. It was extremely heavily stigmatised, and seen as particularly inappropriate for someone with a role in managing the finances of the nation.
But, once again for emphasis, that simply isn't the rule any more, and indeed there is at least one bankrupt MP sitting in Parliament right now.
https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/electing-mps/candidates/
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1668289610504450053?s=20
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-65882169
Most bankruptcies don't come anywhere close to that.
Interesting it lists bankruptcies in Northern Ireland though. I assume Northern Ireland just wasn't subject to the wider insolvency law reforms under the Enterprise Act 2002, so it is an anomaly.
BoZo no more...
Exhibit 1 is Neil Hamilton, 1997.
Exhibit 2 is Michael Portillo and David Mellor, 1997. Granted the seats weren't as safe, but imagine a list system in London: both these characters would be up near the top of the list and extremely difficult to dislodge.
My view is that even with very safe seats it is easier to dislodge a wrong'un with FPTP than with a list system.
Of course, STV gives the voters even more control.
Britain is healing.
"Do you believe in alien abduction?"
"Do you believe that the NHS was ever the "envy of the world"?"
"Did you believe Boris Johnson's statement to the house on Partygate?"
Unless you know something we don't...
People are being hoodwinked by some of the usual players. Bigelow, he of the Skinwalker Ranch nonsense, is behind a lot of this.
The sum total of all the ‘good stuff’ videos released this year have all been explained. I get that people want to believe. I really do. But there’s nothing behind the curtain folks.
There were just four genuine intellectuals who became PM: Brown (whom you noted) Wilson, Balfour and Pitt the Younger (like Sunak, he used to amuse himself by making mathematical equations of soldiers wheeling).
Pitt was brilliant. Wilson was very successful. The others, well...
Hannan finally got his wish to be kicked out of the European Parliament a decade later, only to be elevated to the Lords alongside several other redundant MEPs!
SLAB - 30%
SNP - 35%
SCONS - 19%