Clearly, it has been a very tricky week for Sunak which hasn’t been helped by the party gate report on Johnson. You can tell how seriously the ex-PM is taking this by the number of BoJo loyalists who are being sent out to seek to rubbish the parliamentary investigation.
Comments
(Edit: Well technically third)
Some economists believe inflation is so out of control, the Bank of England will have to induce a recession through rate hikes.
Sunak & Hunt acknowledge that may be the only way to control price rises.
Looney bin posters here
The "problem" isn't Rishi Sunak particularly. After 13 years of leading the Government, people are tired of the Conservative Party and that has been exacerbated by how some leading Conservatives in Parliament have comported themselves in the past three or four years.
It's not just venality or incompetence but the arrogance that comes from a belief they will be in power forever and are thus not subject to accountability or transparency or scrutiny whether from Parliament or the electorate.
Individual Conservatives (including those who post on here) must be absolutely frustrated by what has happened but the health of democracy requires the occasional peaceful change of power. Of course, Corbyn wasn't the answer - we all knew that - and Starmer may not be everyone's cup of tea but he and his Party look ready and willing to govern in a way the current incumbents do not.
I am Horse.
Surely someone has got to mobilise the 17,000,000 (Now more likely to be 25,000,000) or they're going to get bounced around by this economic storm like everyone else and without even a loin cloth.
Time for someone with courage or ambition to go for it.
Think that is a sign of tactical voting firming up after council elections.
Which I suspect it will, based on demographics and Brexit's failure to deliver.
Having tried harmful Brexit, the next stop will be pointless Brexit (shadowing Euro rules to lubricate trade). We will have to see if that goes any better. It's what some people wanted all along, but I think that it will send Sovereignty/Democracy types mad.
Let's see.
Project fear does usually work - some things should make us afraid. But we have a weird thing where we seem to respond either to over the top fearmongering, or absurd boosterism divorced from reality, but nothing in between.
Your sex is in your chromosomes and for the overwhelming majority demonstrated in their reproductive organs. It’s binary in the overwhelming majority of mammals.
How many genders are there?
107?
https://www.sexualdiversity.org/edu/1111.php
If not, how many? And how do you prove it?
Gender is a social construct and a belief system.
Unsurprisingly some are rejecting compelled belief and compelled speech.
That was certainly true of Attlee in 1945 and Thatcher in 1979 (and possibly Asquith too in 1906). There's no point offering a radical solution if most people don't accept such a solution is required to the problems faced by the country.
Starmer isn't a first term radical - he may become more radical if winning a second term but in the first term he will seek (hopefully) to undo some of the more contentious Conservative legislation. Unfortunately, Labour loves power as much as the Conservatives so we're not likely to see a return of scrutiny power to Westminster or serious devolution to elected councils.
The great danger is that just as those who blamed all our ills on the EU, now too many are blaming all our ills on not being in the EU.
I have no doubt at all that our issues are made a bit worse by Brexit. I also think many overestimate quite how much of an effect there is.
I’d be wary of opinion polls on rejoin. I’ve not seen one yet that specifies the terms.
Edit: you're easily one in 9,997. And there's data to support this!
"Sixty-six percent of registered voters think Biden is too old to be president and 59 percent have doubts about his mental fitness, according to a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll conducted last week."
"Biden is a weak candidate against almost any Republican, including Trump, and he’s probably even weaker with Kamala Harris as his running mate."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/opinion/robert-kennedy-democrat-president-2024.html
I'm not even sure I have a problem with a really centralised state, but I'm sick to death of endless talking about devolution and either not delivering, or delivering something inconsistent, needlessly confusing, or shocking haphazard.
But he promises to force all districts and countries to become unitaries he has my vote.
We can get a Brexit that works for the economy. The Tories and the Brexiteers though, cannot achieve it.
Sunak and Starmer do seem to want to cultivate a closer relationship with the EU, not least with Sunak agreeing the WF and addressing UVDL as his 'dear friend' at the Ukraine conference today
I would suggest most voters would support closer and friendlier ties with and collaboration on trade but it has to be remembered that we are now in the CPTPP and Macron seems to have the best proposition for the EPC group of countries which would be an ideal compromise and let us all move on from the polarisation of leave and remain
I'll give you a starter;
CHB: Nomination for best original user name
Ethnicity is a social construct. Religion is a social construct. These things have protection in law (albeit different ones). Money is a social construct. Democracy is a social construct. Lots of interesting and nice things are social constructs!
Kennedy has sub 1% chance of being Dem nominee, Biden closer to 90% than the market 70%.
So Sunak realised he could not afford to alienate Johnson supporters too much in the report vote too much and abstained even if the vast majority of Tory MPs also did not vote against it either so as not to offend centrist voters too much
Stepson of missing billionaire on Titanic submarine shoots his shot with OnlyFans model as rescuers scramble to locate his stepfather.
https://twitter.com/PopCrave/status/1671549335027298308/photo/2
Wales Westminster VI (17-18 June):
Labour 43% (–)
Conservatives 22% (-1)
Reform UK 12% (+3)
Plaid Cymru 10% (-1)
Liberal Democrat 7% (-1)
Green 4% (–)
Other 1% (–)
Changes +/- 14-15 May
My biological sex is male. My choices in hobby, clothing, profession, makeup etc are individual choices to make, not a reflection of some gender identity.
Choosing dance, dresses, nurse and lots of makeup would not require me to identify as female gender; any more than a biological woman choosing rugby, jeans and shirt, engineer and no makeup requires them to identify as male gender.
No need for any 'gender identity' when it's become such a loaded term.
I appreciate others feel differently and respect their freedom to do so. But I reject gender identify as a premise, much in the same way I reject religion and having to choose a favourite football team.
Boris is definitely part of the problem because he reached a wing of voters, mainly northern red wall ones, who Sunak not only doesn't reach, but whom he has alienated. Boris has not gone away. Or, rather, by his exile he is reminding them of what they no longer have. Remember, they did not vote for Sunak. Every time Boris sticks his column in the Mail he's enflaming them against Sunak. These are also largely the 2019 stayaways who Mike has been warning about.
But there are two other whammies
One is the mortgage crisis, which is awful.
The other inflation, ditto.
Winning here!
There are a set of gender stereotypes which I might conform to, to one extent or another, but my male identity is a physical one and not something that I attach to my behaviours, where I see myself as a person.
I thought that one of the objectives of feminism, that I support, was to free people from constricting gender stereotypes, rather than to use gender stereotypes to classify people as belonging to a gender that might, or might not, match their biological sex.
And that is not said out of any starry eyed admiration for the egregious Herbert Asquith or his cold, dead corpse.
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23825119/cnn-poll-2024-democratic-primary.pdf
What is the main reason you would consider supporEng Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.? [OPEN-END]
May 17-20, 2023
Kennedy name/Family connecaons 20%
Do not know enough/Want to learn more 17%
Support his views/policies 12%
Would consider any candidate/Open-minded 10%
Is a Democrat/Not a Republican 10%
Qualified/Has poliacal experience 7%
Support any Democrat over Trump/Is not Trump 5%
Not Biden/Alternaave to Biden 4%
Would do a good job/Is a good leader 4%
Environmental posiaons/Climate 4%
Could win 3%
Someone new/Fresh face/Fresh ideas 3%
Age/Younger 3%
Could step in if Biden unable 1%
Other 9%
No opinion 8%
Survation's 18% Labour lead just out is the highest for 4 months.
The mean Labour lead of the last 6 national opinion polls is 19.33% and there's remarkable convergence too with the deviation only between 18% and 22%.
Every single one of those polls also has the combined Lab-LibDem percentage between 55-58% which I suggest is the most significant figure given the likely anti-Conservative tactical vote.
All 6 polls have the Conservatives in the 20's.
Them's the facts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
If I say “I don’t believe in god” I’m not instantly denounced for promoting a Christian/Muslim genocide, of denying the existence of Christians, or having the police set upon me for hate speech. The trans community have been very poorly served by the authoritarian “no debate” trans activists.
EXCL: The long-awaited ban on conversion therapy is finally sitting in the PM’s red box.
It now awaits his sign-off/changes but the current draft:
- covers sexuality & gender
- includes a ‘consent clause’ which won’t protect those who volunteer for CT'
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1671479617578729474?s=20
The EU’s decision to give intrusive surveillance of reporters the green light has put their sources at risk of identification
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/journalist-spyware-eu-surveillance-sources-3lfnqqznr (£££)
(Plus, of course, God believes in you)
Your sex is recorded on your passport, presumably because, in the past, people of different sex were treated differently under the law. Perhaps, rather than get into a tangle over whether the passport should record gender, or biological sex, and whether there should be a way to change between the two, we might consider simply removing it from the passport?
Or if biological sex is still relevant, because we treat people differently in some circumstances because of their sex, then we should be clear that the passport/birth certificate records a person's biological sex, and they are free to adopt a different gender identity if they please.
Middle class voters generally prefer Rishi to Boris, problem is many of them went LD or Starmer Labour last year and as the local election results proved aren't coming back even with Rishi.
PB being overwhelmingly middle class picks up the latter demographic but not the former
I'm not defending the over-the-top authoritarian rhetoric used by some activists. (I will note that you have spoken strongly against trans issues and the police haven't been set upon you, AFAIK.)
1. This isn't the right place. It's a political forum and, with respect to you, this
2. Is of very little relevance to the vast majority of people, most of whom don't rub shoulders with either trans male to females or trans females to males (remarkably absent from discussions by the anti-woke Right I note)
3. I have little desire, as a woman, to debate with irate old men like you who seem to think they know what a woman is but whose other views usually reveal them to be out-and-out misogynists.
This may raise its head in a GE campaign but it will do so for the barest moment. It's a clear sign to me that the Conservatives are losing. We had all this nonsense before in a different guise under John Major with his Back to Basics bullshit.
Your 1997 awaits.
Not only Bobby Kennedy under LBJ's Presidency in 1968 but Ted Kennedy too v Carter in 1980 shows Kennedys are not afraid of challenging incumbent Democratic Presidents. Ted Kennedy also backed Obama in 2008 v establishment frontrunner Hillary Clinton