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Now I am become Death, the destroyer of political parties – politicalbetting.com
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of political parties – politicalbetting.com
It is worth comparing these net ratings to those from October '22. They have got worse on 9 out of the 10. Interestingly, Labour's ratings have also fallen over this period. pic.twitter.com/pLBeCrIcea
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Miklosvar said:
In other news, Rhodes gets evacuated
Wildfires spreading across the Greek island of Rhodes are leaving thousands of tourists in limbo, wondering where they will spend the night
Meanwhile, holiday companies are cancelling flights to the island. Jet2 has cancelled flights to Rhodes all next week, while TUI stopped flights there until Wednesday
EasyJet has cancelled package holidays but is still running flights to the island - as are British Airways, Ryanair, and others
BA customers who are currently in Rhodes on a flight-only booking can change their flight to come back earlier than planned, free of charge, the airline says.
And anyone flying to Rhodes with BA over the next week can change their flight to a later date, also free of charge.
As for the BA flight tomorrow - the airline says it will use a larger plane than normal so that it can pick up as many people as possible in Rhodes who want to return to the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-66282605
Nothing to see here, happens every year
Throughout that region and most of the Med yes it does happen each year and it is down to chance mainly the type of areas affected. There may be also an issue as to how well the authorities have planned for fire risks. I live on the edge of Europe's only desert in Almeria - we had some bad fires here back in 2009 but very little of significance since. Each year now a lot of preventive measures are taken and they have rapid responses whenever and however a fire starts. Incidentally there are both the naturally occurring ones and often the larger number set by humans ignoring the rules or just being feckless.
I'm sure the Greek authorities are thrilled that the entire region now faces boycotts and cancellations while the 10 day forecast is for entirely normal summer temperatures.
https://www.eltiempo.es/rodas.html
1 Construct a timeline that doesn't lead to the fall of their champion. Complete personality transplants not allowed.
2 Construct a timeline where the Conservatives are more popular than they are now.
I don't think either can plausibly be done.
What have I , What have I, What have I, done to deserve this?
Afternoon all
The washing out at Stodge Towers, the covers on at Old Trafford. The certainties of an English summer?
Also among the certainties arguments on a Sunday at Tesco as shoppers with small trollies try to use the self checkout tills and street theatre on the corner as two drivers discuss the finer points of the ULEZ (that seems improbable given the gestures and language on offer).
As for ULEZ, it's about means and ends - most people wouldn't argue with an end that everyone deserves to breathe cleaner air. The problem is the means - ULEZ is not without merit but the problem, apart from the desperate desire of the Conservatives to find a stick with which to beat Labour, is it looks less like an altruistic measure to improve the quality of London's air than a cash-raising exercise to help Khan and City Hall.
While recognising the need for stick, there needs to be a lot of carrot - selling ULEZ in Inner London where most people have good access to public transport and where the necessity for a car is debatable is one thing (96% of vehicles were compliant) but selling it in Outer London is a different proposition. Yes, the majority of cars will be compliant but we know diesel ownership is greater and small business (the eponymous white van man) tends often to older particulate pumping diesels.
There needs to be a base assumption that no one should be financially worse off if they exchange a non-compliant for a compliant vehicle - if they stick with their non-complient vehicle, they'll know what to expect.
The other aspect is traffic from Outer to Inner London - we already have a congestion charge in place. For many, the journet from Outer to Inner London starts with a drive to a tube or train station and parking up before commuting in to the centre of town - ULEZ is irrelevant currently.
Taking the ULEZ to Outer London means £12.50 to get to the tube or train station and it also impacts on those in the next ring of the doughnut - car owners in Surrey, Essex and elsewhere who drive into Outer London towns - they suddenly become liable for this charge.
Why should anyone from Reigate or Harlow fund the London Mayoralty? That doesn't mean nothing can or should be done - the ends are still important. Taking some of the heat out of the issue would be a good step but it's a bone with which the Susan Halls and Lee Andersons can run. Perhaps they don't think or believe air quality is an issue - I've certainly never heard Susan Hall, in a pause among her rantings, advocate any kind of alternative solution.
Tragically, there are loads of examples of people suspending disbelief when it's a bad plan. The bad boy shagger who you want your girly besties to stay away from, but there's no point telling them that.
It was utterly predictable, but hey- I voted for him in 2008 and 2012.
The point now is to look forward. We have a useless PM, with another useless PM in waiting. I see the best situation from here is for the Tories to ditch Sunak and give us an actual election.
Ukrainians are not going to give up unless Putin kills them all
Has Lee Anderson commented?
In his constituency I think politically he'd be tickling the chin of the motohoon lobby - maybe. But he also has plenty of experience as a single dad living on very little in a horribly congested old terraced housing area with pavements blocked by parkers both sides of the narrow streets.
What I have mostly spotted from him recently has been about canal boats.
This morning saw a long-white bearded gent (late 60s?) with a parked up Surron unregistered e-motorbike at the snack shack. Apparently it does 55mph, and he gets a touch touchy if he overhears comparisons with the type of tearaways who killed themselves on one in Cardiff.
The way in which the Conservative Party has comported itself in Government over the last thirteen years is far and away the factor which will cause their defeat at the next election.
It's not really Sunak or Truss or Johnson or May or Cameron in and of themselves - it's the Party they lead which has simply become a vehicle to remain in Government, to hold on to "power".
The other side is what would another term of Conservative Government look like? For all the "ideas" and "true blue" thinking now being bandied about, the truth is they've been in power since May 2010 and the obvious question is why haven't all these wonderful ideas been implemented before now? Why has it taken a Conservative Government more than 13 years to become Conservative?
As always, there are more questions than answers....
The notion of "fairness" is now in the ascendant - cutting the taxes of the poorest is now seen as more acceptable and if anything policies aimed at getting more out of the wealthiest would now have greater support.
If it hadn’t have been for those two issues we’d probably have had 9-10 years of vaguely ok Tory rule albeit getting a bit poor towards the end, and we’d probably be into the first term of a Cooper/Burnham government.
I think the upcoming reshuffle will disappoint those looking for a new direction.
I can’t say I find Rishi particularly objectionable. He comes across quite well. He just isn’t up to dragging them out of the mire. But then very few people would be. It would require a colossal political talent to do so, and the party is now so hollowed out there’s little talent left.
They felt there was no other choice, and given the way she'd failed to deal with the crisis she provoked that was probably true, but in chopping of a leg to save the body the party crippled itself in the eyes of the public - Borisites will never forgive the initial ousting, those on the fence probably thought it ridiculous, and you don't get another free reinvention as in 2019.
The likelihood of two solid days of rain must be the highest at any of the regular test grounds
He gave that commitment at a point when it seemed possible UKIP would be an existential threat - once he was in the re-negotiating process, it was almost inevitable anything offered by the EU (not that they offered anything) would be unacceptable to the hardline anti-EU brigade.
Cameron knew had he accepted some fudge from the EU, he would have risked if not an outright challenge then a number of potential defections to UKIP. With no fudge, Cameron was then forced into a corner of an straight IN-OUT vote. Perhaps he thought he could win a straight vote if it came to it...
Of course, we clearly do have deep economic problems and she was probably right people are ready to hear solutions for that. But whilst all government decisions are political, it seemed completely ideological, in the pejorative 'this is what a I believe no matter what the evidence might suggest' sense of the word.
As for the party briefing against her immediately, this is also probably true, but it is not really the defence of Truss people think it is - a party leader has to bring their party with them. Prepare them, persuade them, co-opt them. Even if they've just won a stonking 'mandate' from party members, the MPs are the ones who have to stand up and defend these things, and implement them if in government. It may have taken more time, but could they have been brought on board with more preparation? Wait until after Christmas and she's in post several months, we're 1.5-2 years out rather than 2-2.5 as well, and everyone has settled into the new positions anyway.
I actually have Press Accreditation from the Ukrainian army - meaning I can break curfew and go to combat zones (huzzah!) - but you don’t need anything at all. Just a UK passport and patience in dealing with transport delays. Book trains days ahead and arrive early etc
Expect cancellations. Factor in flexibility
I absolutely recommend any PBer to come. Bear witness. And lviv is incredible
It’s quite tough as well. All the wounded men
But jeez it puts everything in perspective. What the fuck are we moaning about in the UK? Cost of living crisis? Food banks? What a load of pathetic whining. We have grown fat and feeble
Personally I think the energy/fracking stuff should have been packaged up with the energy price guarantee and put through as an energy security bill before anything else. Then a Food security bill, THEN an economical security bill.
Truss's intent was to do a hail mary and hope it worked, Sunak's is to stem the bleeding and hope they can cling on, and neither seems to have achieved that.
Liz "Icarus" Truss?
The Barbie Liberation Organization or BLO, sponsored by RTMark, were a group of artists and activists involved in culture jamming. They gained notoriety in 1993 after switching voice boxes in talking G.I. Joes and Barbie dolls. The BLO performed "surgery" on a reported 300–500 dolls from retail and returned them to shelves, an action they refer to as shopgiving. Thus, Teen Talk Barbie dolls would say phrases such as "Vengeance is mine", while G.I. Joe dolls would say phrases such as "The beach is the place for summer!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbie_Liberation_Organizationv
It's all got a bit consed since then.
However voicebox swaps prompts the thought of JRM with .. Danny Dyer, CIlla Black, Baldrick.....
(how do you do edit these days?)
Feeble, probably more on point.
There is no housing shortage
1) the increase in en-suite bathrooms means there are enough rooms for everyone to sleep in
2) all the flats were stolen by Fu Manchu
3) brownfield. Underpants. Profit
4) an increasing population means that a smaller number of properties are required and will be cheaper {insert bullshit maths here}
5) racist
7) Don't build infrastructure either though.
"And as when consuming fire falls upon thick woodlands and the whiching wind beareth it everywhither and the thickets fall utterly as they are assailed by the onrush at the fire."
A significant portion of the Greek ecosystem - the Maquis - which makes up about 15% of the total land area of Greece, couldn't actually exist without forest fires.
Im having my first day off in ten, and my second in nineteen. Monday to Saturday I worked sixty two hours
Im making dinner for my parents tonight, the lamb and rhubarb stew with rice and an Ottolenghi cucumber salad. Waitrose ran out of rhubarb; I happened to see a neighbour on the way back who directed me to their allotment half filled with overgrown rhubarb!
Unfortunately for her Thatcher cosplay doesn’t get you the right to economic growth & once she was revealed as an empty shell with no idea what she was doing (& her Chancellor likewise) the markets spooked & there was no way back.
2010-15 cleaning up the GFC mess
2015-20 focus on Brexit
2020-today pandemic and Ukraine
All of those items were all consuming (not trying to assign responsibility, merely to note that bandwidth for anything else was limited)
What a genius.
“Greece mounted its largest-ever island evacuation this weekend, moving close to 19,000 people on Rhodes to escape wildfires that have prompted some tour operators to cancel flights to the popular destination.”
https://www.ft.com/content/9c67eb16-931b-462c-9174-32245725da07
Firstly, the only way she could have hoped to ride out the storm (which was already of her own making) would have been to double down, back Kwarteng and tell her critics to stuff it and wait and see the positive results. The problem is that one has to be made of exceptionally strong stuff to be able to do that, when everyone is out to get you, and one has to be a decent communicator. Truss was neither. She liked to think of herself as a latter day Thatcher but she couldn’t hack it. She blinked. And she showed the pressure. And from there it was inevitable the whole thing would collapse.
Secondly, this all came about because of a highly deranged Tory leadership contest where the issue of tax cuts came out of absolutely nowhere and became the primary issue of the campaign, DESPITE this being pretty low on the list of public priorities. She leaned into this far too much and created a rod for her own back.
Thirdly Truss was naive to the extreme in thinking the mandate from Tory members gave her mandate to do whatever she liked as PM. Constitutionally maybe, but certainly not in the eyes of the public. She should have spent the time leading up to the next election speaking about and arguing for a pro-growth agenda but recognising that it would need a mandate at the next GE. She could do some small things to “set the groundwork” where possible, but really take the time to actually argue her point rather than go in all guns blazing.
I am afraid the conclusion I draw from all 3 items above is that, fundamentally, Liz Truss did not have the political skills to be PM and was grossly overpromoted in getting the role. Not up to it. Unfortunately the country suffers as a result.
(a) custard
(b) ground rice pudding
(c) ice cream
(d) not too sour Greek yog
or (e) cream
c-e served with shortbread as a side nibble/crunch.
(And those who worked most closely with her suggested as much in advance of her premiership).
But it’s a sad judgment on the UK that she even enjoyed a succession of highly significant cabinet roles without any check or real scrutiny.
Like a lot of us (well, me anyway) he didn't think the electorate would be so effing stupid as to vote for something that was plainly bad for the economy. He was surprised, as I was, to find otherwise.
As a leading politician, he's fairly high up the list of defendants when the show trials begin. Ordinary members of the public like me who were simply too complacent will have to wait our turn.
Which is why we need policies that aren’t regressive taxation. Note that the climate change levy on energy bills isn’t a problem because it is *equal*. Well, kinda. The rich have the best insulated homes, of course.
I’m thinking more of the guardian front page mindset. Which is endless headlines whinging about this that and the next. From racist flower arranging to our “practically fascist government” to the catastrophic lack of kindergarten slots in
Yorkshire
It’s all so spineless and dreary and lifeless and enfeebled.
And how dare we call it a “cost of living CRISIS”. 50p on eggs at Aldi is not a frigging crisis. 10,000 young men dead is a crisis. We have debased the language of alarm
She’s shit at politics
I first used it raw and salted in a salad last week, and now my second time cooking it in a savoury main course stew
Don't use it too old - you might have to peel off the outer stringly bits lengthwise if thick. But the thinner young stalks are fine.
Some folk add spce - cinnamon? Ginger? can't remember - but I've never tried that.
Your train being cancelled but still operating as empty coaching stock, so you get to see it whistling through the station non-stop.
Am now on the next train, but connection out the window.
I believe that Rhodes has a concentrated population. So a fire threatening the wrong place because of bad luck would lead to a large number of people being evacuated
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Jaresko (finance minister)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson (when he was foreign minister)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/europeans-poorer-inflation-economy-255eb629?mod=e2fb&fbclid=IwAR16O1exRqNaN0i1gT-IIzXAQ7ncCEc-caYFNedQsQqs-3m53vmfKXsb3co
But yes, the right can be equally wanky. That article
from Dan Hannan is a case in point
F***ing journalists, all thinking they're more honourable than the rest of them. Except maybe at the Scum.
BTW in a sensible world, Cameron would still be PM (unless gracefully losing in the 2020 election to a moderate Labour leader) and a massive centrist alliance of Con/Lab/SNP and LD would have us in a Swiss/Norway relationship with the EU. We would be getting ready for a boring election on 'which competent centrist do you prefer' in 2025.