I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
I honestly do not know how the remaining PB Tories actually keep hustling with a straight face. "Yes we're an absolute shambles but its my team so I'm going to keep backing them": I can at least understand.
But HY especially keeps saying how right whatever the latest stupid is and even tries to moralise even as he eulogises the latest immorality.
It isn't a case of the Tories will lose. Or even that they deserve to lose. Its that they deserve to be crushed, and increasing numbers of people are reaching that conclusion with increasing clarity.
You of course didn't even vote Conservative in 2019 when they won convincingly
But I voted Tory with eagerness in 2019. And I’ve voted Tory in maybe 8/10 General Elections, and maybe even more often in local elections, with the odd move to Greens, Lib Dem’s, Binface or UKIP (in euros). I’m a fairly core Tory voter (albeit not a Tory: not a Tory member etc)
And you’ve completely lost me. No way I vote Tory in ‘24. And I might even vote Labour, because we need a solid government with a powerful majority and because I want to see the Tories humiliated and crushed. So they learn
It is that bad. Sorry.
Fine, you voted for Blair too I recall.
You will be back voting Conservative again within a year of a Starmer government
I know lots of people here aren't keen on Stats for Lefties, but they have done numerous models of various polls based on how much tactical voting could happen. In some of those where the Tories still get double the vote share of LDs, it shows LDs getting more seats in the anticipation of tactical voting from a percentage of Lab / LD / Green voters in certain constituencies. It isn't happening in many projections, but it happens in some. I think in a world where the Tories have
The Tories would need to be under 20% to get less than 100 seats whatever tactical voting was.
More likely they end up on 30-35% after squeezing RefUK and DKs
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
I honestly do not know how the remaining PB Tories actually keep hustling with a straight face. "Yes we're an absolute shambles but its my team so I'm going to keep backing them": I can at least understand.
But HY especially keeps saying how right whatever the latest stupid is and even tries to moralise even as he eulogises the latest immorality.
It isn't a case of the Tories will lose. Or even that they deserve to lose. Its that they deserve to be crushed, and increasing numbers of people are reaching that conclusion with increasing clarity.
You of course didn't even vote Conservative in 2019 when they won convincingly
But I voted Tory with eagerness in 2019. And I’ve voted Tory in maybe 8/10 General Elections, and maybe even more often in local elections, with the odd move to Greens, Lib Dem’s, Binface or UKIP (in euros). I’m a fairly core Tory voter (albeit not a Tory: not a Tory member etc)
And you’ve completely lost me. No way I vote Tory in ‘24
You're not alone.
I've voted Labour when 18 in 2001, then Tory in 5/5 elections since.
According to HYUFD that means I should 'f*** off and join the Lib Dems' as I'm not a real Tory anyway.
Often its said we 'get the government we deserve' as an electorate, but when a party takes the attitude that only the pure should vote for the party and everyone else should 'f*** off' then they will get the electoral result they deserve.
You aren't, you even whinge about housebuilding then go and vote for the ultra NIMBY LDs
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
The Conservative Party has been demonised as a brand. Very skillfully and relentlessly done by Starmer and others. It doesn't matter who the leader is. I think this sums it up.
Chunks of people up and down the country who are ideologically conservative will not be voting for the Conservative Party; either sitting on their hand and moaning or voting for a party counter to their ideology.
The Tories haver Ratnered their own brand. I don't think Starmer has had much to do with it.
Mostly, I don't agree.
Talk us through the shitshow of HS2 these last weeks, then. No one is responsible for that other than HMG
“We’re going to cancel it. No we’re not. Yes we are. No we’re gonna half cancel it. No it’s going to end in Willesden. No it’s gonna end near that Aldi by the betting shop. No that’s all wrong we’re going to delay it by 638 years”
Take away the politics and economics and just look at the PR. The retail display. The terrible pantomime that everyone can see. It’s a shameful mess and it makes them look like pitiful clueless ditherers (even if they’re not; but I think they are)
That’s all on them. There’s no one at home. They need putting out of their misery - and ours
WTF is the point of cancelling HS2 now? I never wanted the blasted thing in the first place as you could just put high speed WiFi on the trains instead. However, having obliterated half the Chilterns and caused misery for thousands through the roadworks (that I have experienced plenty of) to do it then they need to finish the job.
If they do leave it unfinished it will be the largest memorial ever to a government that ballsed it up.
Finish it. Preferably with a long distance cycle path alongside it.
The biggest issue with HS2 is how it has been sold. Even yesterday, serious commentators talking about reducing journey times.
That. Was. Not. The. Point. Of. HS2.
It was always about increasing capacity on the existing lines for freight, and thus a good thing. Get those bloody lorries of the motorways and onto trains, preferably driven by overhead electric.
Lorries only for the last few miles.
And yet all we here about is quicker journeys. Whoever was responsible for marketing ought to be fired.
But there are rail experts on Twitter saying that stopping at Old Oak Common, not Euston, destroys the extra-capacity benefit as well as the extra speed benefit, as it will create huge bottlenecks and won’t permit more freight
So even on that argument it looks like HS2.382 (non-HS version 5) will be a mindblowingly expensive failure
The whole thing is a massive cock-up, but my point stands about the actual reason to do HS2 in the first place. That the ambition will fail because of a lack of political will is sad, but but not surprising.
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
I honestly do not know how the remaining PB Tories actually keep hustling with a straight face. "Yes we're an absolute shambles but its my team so I'm going to keep backing them": I can at least understand.
But HY especially keeps saying how right whatever the latest stupid is and even tries to moralise even as he eulogises the latest immorality.
It isn't a case of the Tories will lose. Or even that they deserve to lose. Its that they deserve to be crushed, and increasing numbers of people are reaching that conclusion with increasing clarity.
You of course didn't even vote Conservative in 2019 when they won convincingly
But I voted Tory with eagerness in 2019. And I’ve voted Tory in maybe 8/10 General Elections, and maybe even more often in local elections, with the odd move to Greens, Lib Dem’s, Binface or UKIP (in euros). I’m a fairly core Tory voter (albeit not a Tory: not a Tory member etc)
And you’ve completely lost me. No way I vote Tory in ‘24
You're not alone.
I've voted Labour when 18 in 2001, then Tory in 5/5 elections since.
According to HYUFD that means I should 'f*** off and join the Lib Dems' as I'm not a real Tory anyway.
Often its said we 'get the government we deserve' as an electorate, but when a party takes the attitude that only the pure should vote for the party and everyone else should 'f*** off' then they will get the electoral result they deserve.
You aren't, you even whinge about housebuilding then go and vote for the ultra NIMBY LDs
You lost any right to call the Lib Dems NIMBY when you embraced NIMBYism yourself.
At the local elections my local Lib Dem candidate displayed no NIMBYism. Their material was all about schools and other local concerns, not stopping construction. So I lent them my vote.
I haven't decided how I will vote in the next General Election, but I have my principles and I will be guided by them, not the colour of the rosette.
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
I honestly do not know how the remaining PB Tories actually keep hustling with a straight face. "Yes we're an absolute shambles but its my team so I'm going to keep backing them": I can at least understand.
But HY especially keeps saying how right whatever the latest stupid is and even tries to moralise even as he eulogises the latest immorality.
It isn't a case of the Tories will lose. Or even that they deserve to lose. Its that they deserve to be crushed, and increasing numbers of people are reaching that conclusion with increasing clarity.
You of course didn't even vote Conservative in 2019 when they won convincingly
But I voted Tory with eagerness in 2019. And I’ve voted Tory in maybe 8/10 General Elections, and maybe even more often in local elections, with the odd move to Greens, Lib Dem’s, Binface or UKIP (in euros). I’m a fairly core Tory voter (albeit not a Tory: not a Tory member etc)
And you’ve completely lost me. No way I vote Tory in ‘24. And I might even vote Labour, because we need a solid government with a powerful majority and because I want to see the Tories humiliated and crushed. So they learn
It is that bad. Sorry.
Fine, you voted for Blair too I recall.
You will be back voting Conservative again within a year of a Starmer government
Nope. Never voted Blair. Never voted Labour or anything left. I despise the left (and still do)
But now it’s a serious choice of lesser of two hideous evils with the worst evil of all being some appalling hung parliament and the country in an even worse mess
Labour are probably gonna win and they might get my vote to help them achieve a solid majority. Also I really really want to see the Tories suffer for all their gob smacking arrogance and venality, it’s time. You’ve had it coming, now it’s coming
I don’t care if the Tories are reduced to 2 seats. You need to go away in opposition and show some remorse and come up with new ideas. Decide who you are. A humiliation will speed that process
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
I honestly do not know how the remaining PB Tories actually keep hustling with a straight face. "Yes we're an absolute shambles but its my team so I'm going to keep backing them": I can at least understand.
But HY especially keeps saying how right whatever the latest stupid is and even tries to moralise even as he eulogises the latest immorality.
It isn't a case of the Tories will lose. Or even that they deserve to lose. Its that they deserve to be crushed, and increasing numbers of people are reaching that conclusion with increasing clarity.
You of course didn't even vote Conservative in 2019 when they won convincingly
But I voted Tory with eagerness in 2019. And I’ve voted Tory in maybe 8/10 General Elections, and maybe even more often in local elections, with the odd move to Greens, Lib Dem’s, Binface or UKIP (in euros). I’m a fairly core Tory voter (albeit not a Tory: not a Tory member etc)
And you’ve completely lost me. No way I vote Tory in ‘24
You're not alone.
I've voted Labour when 18 in 2001, then Tory in 5/5 elections since.
According to HYUFD that means I should 'f*** off and join the Lib Dems' as I'm not a real Tory anyway.
Often its said we 'get the government we deserve' as an electorate, but when a party takes the attitude that only the pure should vote for the party and everyone else should 'f*** off' then they will get the electoral result they deserve.
You aren't, you even whinge about housebuilding then go and vote for the ultra NIMBY LDs
You lost any right to call the Lib Dems NIMBY when you embraced NIMBYism yourself.
At the local elections my local Lib Dem candidate displayed no NIMBYism. Their material was all about schools and other local concerns, not stopping construction. So I lent them my vote.
I haven't decided how I will vote in the next General Election, but I have my principles and I will be guided by them, not the colour of the rosette.
LDs across the South campaigned against new housing in Tory councils Local Plans and won control of many councils on that NIMBY platform.
You are a complete hypocrite to cast any vote for the LDs
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
One of the underlying things that did for Truss was the bunker mentality; schemes would be worked out in Downing Street then sprung on everyone else. So the ideas were worse than they needed to be and the poor bloody infantry had no sense of buy-in.
Rishi is giving off the same fetid smell.
(FFS. This stuff is not difficult to do adequately. I'm a suburban science master and I can see what's wrong...)
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
The government has also told Trans-Pennine Express to cut the number of services between Leeds and Manchester (and beyond) and bin off a fleet of virtually brans new trains. To "connect all the towns and cities in the north".
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
I'm not sure there's very much the Conservatives can do, other than to set out a long-term political vision and edge towards it with policy over the next 12 months.
Sunak won't be applauded for just getting his homework in on time.
Any suggestions as to what that might be ?
(Serious question - not taking the piss, tempting though it is.)
Lots, but at work and don't have time atm.
No doubt I'll disagree with a lot, but I'm interested to hear your opinions when you have time.
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
LAB got about 150 seats in 1935.
CON in complete meltdown now, could do well to get 150!!
The good thing is whatever the result, even Tories 150-200 seats, the Conservatives will likely be ahead in some polls again within a year of a Labour government.
The economic situation and inflation situation is more like the 1960s and 1970s than 1997, there will be no golden economic period for Starmer, he will become unpopular relatively quickly as PM given the decisions he will have to take and will not get a Blair like honeymoon of any sustained length
So you're now arguing that Sunak is lying when he claims that there are good prospects for economic growth and a return to low inflation from 2025, and that the IMF and others back that up?
The PM's own position is that the next Government (whether his or someone else's) will enjoy a significantly improved economic outlook.
The PM and Hunt have done a good job cutting inflation to 6% but that is still double the rate it was in 1997...
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
I honestly do not know how the remaining PB Tories actually keep hustling with a straight face. "Yes we're an absolute shambles but its my team so I'm going to keep backing them": I can at least understand.
But HY especially keeps saying how right whatever the latest stupid is and even tries to moralise even as he eulogises the latest immorality.
It isn't a case of the Tories will lose. Or even that they deserve to lose. Its that they deserve to be crushed, and increasing numbers of people are reaching that conclusion with increasing clarity.
You of course didn't even vote Conservative in 2019 when they won convincingly
But I voted Tory with eagerness in 2019. And I’ve voted Tory in maybe 8/10 General Elections, and maybe even more often in local elections, with the odd move to Greens, Lib Dem’s, Binface or UKIP (in euros). I’m a fairly core Tory voter (albeit not a Tory: not a Tory member etc)
And you’ve completely lost me. No way I vote Tory in ‘24
You're not alone.
I've voted Labour when 18 in 2001, then Tory in 5/5 elections since.
According to HYUFD that means I should 'f*** off and join the Lib Dems' as I'm not a real Tory anyway.
Often its said we 'get the government we deserve' as an electorate, but when a party takes the attitude that only the pure should vote for the party and everyone else should 'f*** off' then they will get the electoral result they deserve.
You aren't, you even whinge about housebuilding then go and vote for the ultra NIMBY LDs
You lost any right to call the Lib Dems NIMBY when you embraced NIMBYism yourself.
At the local elections my local Lib Dem candidate displayed no NIMBYism. Their material was all about schools and other local concerns, not stopping construction. So I lent them my vote.
I haven't decided how I will vote in the next General Election, but I have my principles and I will be guided by them, not the colour of the rosette.
LDs across the South campaigned against new housing in Tory councils Local Plans and won control of many councils on that NIMBY platform.
You are a complete hypocrite to cast any vote for the LDs
I don't live in the South, I'm not going to hold against my local candidate something others did in other locations - when by that logic I would have to hold against every Tory everything mad that you've ever said.
If my candidate is NIMBY I will not vote for them, I will spoil my ballot if need be, but there's no hypocrisy in that.
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
The government has also told Trans-Pennine Express to cut the number of services between Leeds and Manchester (and beyond) and bin off a fleet of virtually brans new trains. To "connect all the towns and cities in the north".
Perhaps they'll announce an electric drone service for 2040 ?
The Conservative Party has been demonised as a brand. Very skillfully and relentlessly done by Starmer and others. It doesn't matter who the leader is. I think this sums it up.
Chunks of people up and down the country who are ideologically conservative will not be voting for the Conservative Party; either sitting on their hand and moaning or voting for a party counter to their ideology.
The Tories haver Ratnered their own brand. I don't think Starmer has had much to do with it.
No they haven't. What they have done has nothing to do with what Gerald Ratner did to his brand. The closest to that is Theresa May's 'Nasty Party' speech, and damaging as that was, they've won elections since then.
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
The last line is the important one. Even if you support a policy how can you trust this bunch to implement it successfully. Its why No 10 has to realise 'seizing the narrative' won't save them. Very few are even listening to them any more
The brutal reality is that rail absolutely sucks as a medium for modern freight, which is why its not used much already, we're a tiny island so the whole country is 'the last few miles'.
Rail is absolutely fantastic for moving humongous volumes of the same product, from the same source, to the same destination. Nothing comes close to rail for that. IE moving coal from a mine, to a power plant.
For the modern economy it makes no sense whatsoever, which is why rail's share of freight transportation has collapsed following the demise of coal. This is to be welcomed not mourned, as the death of coal is great for our air quality and the environment.
This is a similar reason why rail works well with cities for passengers, because then you're moving high volumes [of people] to the same destination, ie central London. But freight doesn't want to go to the same destination.
If you want to boost capacity for freight then build more motorways for lorries to drive down - with the other 2 lanes of a motorway being available to be well used by the public too.
Not true, for moving large amounts of stuff from a production centre to a distribution plant some distance away. Rail is much better than lorries for that.
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
The government has also told Trans-Pennine Express to cut the number of services between Leeds and Manchester (and beyond) and bin off a fleet of virtually brans new trains. To "connect all the towns and cities in the north".
Perhaps they'll announce an electric drone service for 2040 ?
The reason for that is someone finally realized that running multiple different train types on the same lines made training workers completely and utterly impossible - because drivers are certified to drive train type X on route Y.
Having a single train type means you only need to train and certify drivers once per route..
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I know lots of people here aren't keen on Stats for Lefties, but they have done numerous models of various polls based on how much tactical voting could happen. In some of those where the Tories still get double the vote share of LDs, it shows LDs getting more seats in the anticipation of tactical voting from a percentage of Lab / LD / Green voters in certain constituencies. It isn't happening in many projections, but it happens in some. I think in a world where the Tories have
The Tories would need to be under 20% to get less than 100 seats whatever tactical voting was.
More likely they end up on 30-35% after squeezing RefUK and DKs
Is there much to squeeze? You're acting like the next GE is going to lead to normal voter behaviour patterns, but all the current evidence suggests that the Tories are alienating many of their typical voters. DKs are likely as not to just not vote at all. RefUK are already saying they are a protest vote. And with every week that passes this government gives more and more reasons for why even traditional Tories wouldn't vote for them - their incompetence, their flip flopping, their inability to make a convincing argument. Even on policy - are they or aren't they for the triple lock? Why are they failing at controlling the border? Why does everyone feel poorer?
They buggered up the mortgage market at a time where their voter coalition was made up of traditional Tories and young / middle aged professionals with mortgages who didn't want the market shock everyone warned Corbyn would bring and had been brought in through the Cameroonian reform times. They lost the second part of that coalition the moment Truss dropped her mini budget, and have only alienated them further since.
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
The Conservative Party has been demonised as a brand. Very skillfully and relentlessly done by Starmer and others. It doesn't matter who the leader is. I think this sums it up.
Chunks of people up and down the country who are ideologically conservative will not be voting for the Conservative Party; either sitting on their hand and moaning or voting for a party counter to their ideology.
The Tories haver Ratnered their own brand. I don't think Starmer has had much to do with it.
No they haven't. What they have done has nothing to do with what Gerald Ratner did to his brand. The closest to that is Theresa May's 'Nasty Party' speech, and damaging as that was, they've won elections since then.
The brutal reality is that rail absolutely sucks as a medium for modern freight, which is why its not used much already, we're a tiny island so the whole country is 'the last few miles'.
Rail is absolutely fantastic for moving humongous volumes of the same product, from the same source, to the same destination. Nothing comes close to rail for that. IE moving coal from a mine, to a power plant.
For the modern economy it makes no sense whatsoever, which is why rail's share of freight transportation has collapsed following the demise of coal. This is to be welcomed not mourned, as the death of coal is great for our air quality and the environment.
This is a similar reason why rail works well with cities for passengers, because then you're moving high volumes [of people] to the same destination, ie central London. But freight doesn't want to go to the same destination.
If you want to boost capacity for freight then build more motorways for lorries to drive down - with the other 2 lanes of a motorway being available to be well used by the public too.
Not true, for moving large amounts of stuff from a production centre to a distribution plant some distance away. Rail is much better than lorries for that.
That's what I just said isn't it? That rail is good for moving large volumes?
The problem is the modern economy isn't built around large volumes like it was in the days of coal.
In the modern economy of smaller, higher quality volumes, just in time supply chains etc, lorries going directly from A to B - or better from A to B, C, D, E and F work better than trains.
Which is why roads represent about 95% of landbased goods movement if I recall correctly.
Low quality, high volume of the same stuff going to the same place died with coal.
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
I honestly do not know how the remaining PB Tories actually keep hustling with a straight face. "Yes we're an absolute shambles but its my team so I'm going to keep backing them": I can at least understand.
But HY especially keeps saying how right whatever the latest stupid is and even tries to moralise even as he eulogises the latest immorality.
It isn't a case of the Tories will lose. Or even that they deserve to lose. Its that they deserve to be crushed, and increasing numbers of people are reaching that conclusion with increasing clarity.
You of course didn't even vote Conservative in 2019 when they won convincingly
But I voted Tory with eagerness in 2019. And I’ve voted Tory in maybe 8/10 General Elections, and maybe even more often in local elections, with the odd move to Greens, Lib Dem’s, Binface or UKIP (in euros). I’m a fairly core Tory voter (albeit not a Tory: not a Tory member etc)
And you’ve completely lost me. No way I vote Tory in ‘24
You're not alone.
I've voted Labour when 18 in 2001, then Tory in 5/5 elections since.
According to HYUFD that means I should 'f*** off and join the Lib Dems' as I'm not a real Tory anyway.
Often its said we 'get the government we deserve' as an electorate, but when a party takes the attitude that only the pure should vote for the party and everyone else should 'f*** off' then they will get the electoral result they deserve.
You aren't, you even whinge about housebuilding then go and vote for the ultra NIMBY LDs
You lost any right to call the Lib Dems NIMBY when you embraced NIMBYism yourself.
At the local elections my local Lib Dem candidate displayed no NIMBYism. Their material was all about schools and other local concerns, not stopping construction. So I lent them my vote.
I haven't decided how I will vote in the next General Election, but I have my principles and I will be guided by them, not the colour of the rosette.
LDs across the South campaigned against new housing in Tory councils Local Plans and won control of many councils on that NIMBY platform.
You are a complete hypocrite to cast any vote for the LDs
I don't live in the South, I'm not going to hold against my local candidate something others did in other locations - when by that logic I would have to hold against every Tory everything mad that you've ever said.
If my candidate is NIMBY I will not vote for them, I will spoil my ballot if need be, but there's no hypocrisy in that.
Yeah you do. You live closer to the centre of France than to the most northerly point of the UK.
Check the flag on my avatar. What's the UK got to do with anything?
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
Even if you hate the environment and public transport, and want to make filthy rich filthier and richer, the last week or so has been politically inept. If the Tory Party was a pet dog the vet would be recommending to put it to sleep to end its suffering.
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
The delay is utterly meaningless frankly. It means the Northern leg will be determined by the incoming Labour government next year unless the polls change dramatically.
Over to you Starmer.
Is it meaningless ? Presumably a policy change will have costs related to changes in contracts, even if it's looking several years ahead ( @Casino_Royale ?) ?
Only to change again in 12-18 months' time.
Yes.
Also, and this isn't widely known, almost all the construction contracts at HS2 were let on a cost-plus basis (which means contractors are rewarded at their cost, plus their overhead, plus a - decent - profit) for any work they do, and compensated for any change or delay on top, which essentially means they take little to no risk.
This can happen when the scope and risk allocation isn't clear, such that the supply chain simply won't take on the works without it, which is exactly what has happened with HS2: the business case kept changing, and so did the core scope (which was overengineered to the original spec of speed, and then never revised to reflect the modified capacity argument) all the while as the network was meddled with on a CapEx basis whilst the line was porked out to deal with political challenges and objections. And, they still haven't made a decision on Euston.
It's a case study of poor sponsorship and client control.
Ah, apologies - I mentioned that there was something unusual with the risk allocation on HS2 earlier in the previous thread, but managed to get the specifics exactly inverted.
What sort of mitigations can we put in place in order to avoid this sort of situation with future projects? Perhaps some sort of independent delivery authority, which would take charge once the initial political decision to proceed has been taken?
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
The government has also told Trans-Pennine Express to cut the number of services between Leeds and Manchester (and beyond) and bin off a fleet of virtually brans new trains. To "connect all the towns and cities in the north".
Perhaps they'll announce an electric drone service for 2040 ?
The reason for that is someone finally realized that running multiple different train types on the same lines made training workers completely and utterly impossible - because drivers are certified to drive train type X on route Y.
Having a single train type means you only need to train and certify drivers once per route..
They'll still have 3 train types.
They trained drivers on the southern route on 68s, then as soon as they were trained, took the 68s off the route.
There is more of a problem with reducing the route knowledge of the crews, meaning 3 drivers taking turns each, rather than one driving the train all the way.
Reducing the number of services is all about saving cash, rather than providing a service to passengers.
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
That to me says HS2 to Manchester is dead - It's a clear case of admission by omission...
Yes, I think the rumours are all true. No Manchester. No Euston. Astonishingly dumb, an unnerving moment of national incompetence
I still think they'll do Euston. It just wouldn't look good to confirm it at the same time as cancelling the Manchester leg.
Amazing detail on HS2
“But consider also the latest, 52-page Diversity, Inclusion and Equality report produced by HS2 Ltd, the organisation struggling to build the high-speed rail route between London and Birmingham. It lists the ways in which it is reducing inequality through the construction of a railway line, featuring a lengthy segment detailing the millions of pounds in grants it has awarded for this purpose. It also sets out its plans to reduce the proportion of white men in the workforce to build the line. By contrast, just 12 pages are devoted towards the rather more pertinent issue of tunnelling costs. Our society is being racialised, even down to infrastructure projects.”
The delay is utterly meaningless frankly. It means the Northern leg will be determined by the incoming Labour government next year unless the polls change dramatically.
Over to you Starmer.
Is it meaningless ? Presumably a policy change will have costs related to changes in contracts, even if it's looking several years ahead ( @Casino_Royale ?) ?
Only to change again in 12-18 months' time.
Yes.
Also, and this isn't widely known, almost all the construction contracts at HS2 were let on a cost-plus basis (which means contractors are rewarded at their cost, plus their overhead, plus a - decent - profit) for any work they do, and compensated for any change or delay on top, which essentially means they take little to no risk.
This can happen when the scope and risk allocation isn't clear, such that the supply chain simply won't take on the works without it, which is exactly what has happened with HS2: the business case kept changing, and so did the core scope (which was overengineered to the original spec of speed, and then never revised to reflect the modified capacity argument) all the while as the network was meddled with on a CapEx basis whilst the line was porked out to deal with political challenges and objections. And, they still haven't made a decision on Euston.
It's a case study of poor sponsorship and client control.
Ah, apologies - I mentioned that there was something unusual with the risk allocation on HS2 earlier in the previous thread, but managed to get the specifics exactly inverted.
What sort of mitigations can we put in place in order to avoid this sort of situation with future projects? Perhaps some sort of independent delivery authority, which would take charge once the initial political decision to proceed has been taken?
Yes. Keep the civil service beaks out of it. Like the vaccines. Imagine they'd been tasked with vaccine delivery?
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
I honestly do not know how the remaining PB Tories actually keep hustling with a straight face. "Yes we're an absolute shambles but its my team so I'm going to keep backing them": I can at least understand.
But HY especially keeps saying how right whatever the latest stupid is and even tries to moralise even as he eulogises the latest immorality.
It isn't a case of the Tories will lose. Or even that they deserve to lose. Its that they deserve to be crushed, and increasing numbers of people are reaching that conclusion with increasing clarity.
You of course didn't even vote Conservative in 2019 when they won convincingly
But I voted Tory with eagerness in 2019. And I’ve voted Tory in maybe 8/10 General Elections, and maybe even more often in local elections, with the odd move to Greens, Lib Dem’s, Binface or UKIP (in euros). I’m a fairly core Tory voter (albeit not a Tory: not a Tory member etc)
And you’ve completely lost me. No way I vote Tory in ‘24
You're not alone.
I've voted Labour when 18 in 2001, then Tory in 5/5 elections since.
According to HYUFD that means I should 'f*** off and join the Lib Dems' as I'm not a real Tory anyway.
Often its said we 'get the government we deserve' as an electorate, but when a party takes the attitude that only the pure should vote for the party and everyone else should 'f*** off' then they will get the electoral result they deserve.
You aren't, you even whinge about housebuilding then go and vote for the ultra NIMBY LDs
You lost any right to call the Lib Dems NIMBY when you embraced NIMBYism yourself.
At the local elections my local Lib Dem candidate displayed no NIMBYism. Their material was all about schools and other local concerns, not stopping construction. So I lent them my vote.
I haven't decided how I will vote in the next General Election, but I have my principles and I will be guided by them, not the colour of the rosette.
LDs across the South campaigned against new housing in Tory councils Local Plans and won control of many councils on that NIMBY platform.
You are a complete hypocrite to cast any vote for the LDs
I don't live in the South, I'm not going to hold against my local candidate something others did in other locations - when by that logic I would have to hold against every Tory everything mad that you've ever said.
If my candidate is NIMBY I will not vote for them, I will spoil my ballot if need be, but there's no hypocrisy in that.
Yeah you do. You live closer to the centre of France than to the most northerly point of the UK.
Shetland is a bugger for us self-styled 'northerners'
I've looked upon the most northerly point, shortly after getting dive-bombed by some bonxies
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
I honestly do not know how the remaining PB Tories actually keep hustling with a straight face. "Yes we're an absolute shambles but its my team so I'm going to keep backing them": I can at least understand.
But HY especially keeps saying how right whatever the latest stupid is and even tries to moralise even as he eulogises the latest immorality.
It isn't a case of the Tories will lose. Or even that they deserve to lose. Its that they deserve to be crushed, and increasing numbers of people are reaching that conclusion with increasing clarity.
You of course didn't even vote Conservative in 2019 when they won convincingly
But I voted Tory with eagerness in 2019. And I’ve voted Tory in maybe 8/10 General Elections, and maybe even more often in local elections, with the odd move to Greens, Lib Dem’s, Binface or UKIP (in euros). I’m a fairly core Tory voter (albeit not a Tory: not a Tory member etc)
And you’ve completely lost me. No way I vote Tory in ‘24. And I might even vote Labour, because we need a solid government with a powerful majority and because I want to see the Tories humiliated and crushed. So they learn
It is that bad. Sorry.
Fine, you voted for Blair too I recall.
You will be back voting Conservative again within a year of a Starmer government
Nope. Never voted Blair. Never voted Labour or anything left. I despise the left (and still do)
But now it’s a serious choice of lesser of two hideous evils with the worst evil of all being some appalling hung parliament and the country in an even worse mess
Labour are probably gonna win and they might get my vote to help them achieve a solid majority. Also I really really want to see the Tories suffer for all their gob smacking arrogance and venality, it’s time. You’ve had it coming, now it’s coming
I don’t care if the Tories are reduced to 2 seats. You need to go away in opposition and show some remorse and come up with new ideas. Decide who you are. A humiliation will speed that process
If we go into Opposition (which is hardly surprising after 13 years in power) we will go further right, probably ultimately ending up in Braverman, Badenoch or Mogg as leader (maybe with Barclay first).
It won't be remorse it will be proper rightwing red meat which was not there enough for the membership in the Tory government years, 5 years of which were in government with the LDs anyway.
Starmer will then need to hope the economy holds and he gets inflation down enough to keep the rightwing opposition out
I'm not sure there's very much the Conservatives can do, other than to set out a long-term political vision and edge towards it with policy over the next 12 months.
Sunak won't be applauded for just getting his homework in on time.
Any suggestions as to what that might be ?
(Serious question - not taking the piss, tempting though it is.)
Lots, but at work and don't have time atm.
Lucky for us. Any vision from you would almost certainly involve barbed wire and sadism.
Not exactly fair - I may disagree with Casino on a lot of things - but I would trust his views on how to get HS2 back on track because that type of project is his day job...
Ignoring the merits of HS2, I think it does say something about the British state that they can't do relatively simple things that it really means to be a functioning country. Infrastructure projects like building trainlines should not be difficult. Succinctly put here:
All the focus on HS2 is on what happens next rather than the last 10 years. Whatever decision is made there are serious questions about the competence of the British state and successive administrations that a 330 mile high-speed train line has proven (apparently) impossible.
That, but also that when the UK decides to give itself a nice infrastructure present, its first instinct is for it to revolve around the already infrastructure heavy capital & environs. Why on earth it didn’t put together a coherent plan to revolutionise transport in the populous north (actually the UK’s lower middle) is a mystery. It might also have played reasonably well with the actual north, as opposed to Scots wondering what the fuck has HS2 got to do with me.
Actually it’s not a mystery, that’s the recurring mindset of these people.
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
I honestly do not know how the remaining PB Tories actually keep hustling with a straight face. "Yes we're an absolute shambles but its my team so I'm going to keep backing them": I can at least understand.
But HY especially keeps saying how right whatever the latest stupid is and even tries to moralise even as he eulogises the latest immorality.
It isn't a case of the Tories will lose. Or even that they deserve to lose. Its that they deserve to be crushed, and increasing numbers of people are reaching that conclusion with increasing clarity.
You of course didn't even vote Conservative in 2019 when they won convincingly
But I voted Tory with eagerness in 2019. And I’ve voted Tory in maybe 8/10 General Elections, and maybe even more often in local elections, with the odd move to Greens, Lib Dem’s, Binface or UKIP (in euros). I’m a fairly core Tory voter (albeit not a Tory: not a Tory member etc)
And you’ve completely lost me. No way I vote Tory in ‘24
You're not alone.
I've voted Labour when 18 in 2001, then Tory in 5/5 elections since.
According to HYUFD that means I should 'f*** off and join the Lib Dems' as I'm not a real Tory anyway.
Often its said we 'get the government we deserve' as an electorate, but when a party takes the attitude that only the pure should vote for the party and everyone else should 'f*** off' then they will get the electoral result they deserve.
You aren't, you even whinge about housebuilding then go and vote for the ultra NIMBY LDs
You lost any right to call the Lib Dems NIMBY when you embraced NIMBYism yourself.
At the local elections my local Lib Dem candidate displayed no NIMBYism. Their material was all about schools and other local concerns, not stopping construction. So I lent them my vote.
I haven't decided how I will vote in the next General Election, but I have my principles and I will be guided by them, not the colour of the rosette.
LDs across the South campaigned against new housing in Tory councils Local Plans and won control of many councils on that NIMBY platform.
You are a complete hypocrite to cast any vote for the LDs
I don't live in the South, I'm not going to hold against my local candidate something others did in other locations - when by that logic I would have to hold against every Tory everything mad that you've ever said.
If my candidate is NIMBY I will not vote for them, I will spoil my ballot if need be, but there's no hypocrisy in that.
Yeah you do. You live closer to the centre of France than to the most northerly point of the UK.
Shetland is a bugger for us self-styled 'northerners'
I've looked upon the most northerly point, shortly after getting dive-bombed by some bonxies
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
LAB got about 150 seats in 1935.
CON in complete meltdown now, could do well to get 150!!
The good thing is whatever the result, even Tories 150-200 seats, the Conservatives will likely be ahead in some polls again within a year of a Labour government.
The economic situation and inflation situation is more like the 1960s and 1970s than 1997, there will be no golden economic period for Starmer, he will become unpopular relatively quickly as PM given the decisions he will have to take and will not get a Blair like honeymoon of any sustained length
So you're now arguing that Sunak is lying when he claims that there are good prospects for economic growth and a return to low inflation from 2025, and that the IMF and others back that up?
The PM's own position is that the next Government (whether his or someone else's) will enjoy a significantly improved economic outlook.
In fact, I would expect growth to be okay between now and 2030. Labours' problem is that it, and Starmer, are pretty unpopular (they're benefitting from Sunak and the Conservatives being hugely unpopular).
Ignoring the merits of HS2, I think it does say something about the British state that they can't do relatively simple things that it really means to be a functioning country. Infrastructure projects like building trainlines should not be difficult. Succinctly put here:
All the focus on HS2 is on what happens next rather than the last 10 years. Whatever decision is made there are serious questions about the competence of the British state and successive administrations that a 330 mile high-speed train line has proven (apparently) impossible.
That, but also that when the UK decides to give itself a nice infrastructure present, its first instinct is for it to revolve around the already infrastructure heavy capital & environs. Why on earth it didn’t put together a coherent plan to revolutionise transport in the populous north (actually the UK’s lower middle) is a mystery. It might also have played reasonably well with the actual north, as opposed to Scots wondering what the fuck has HS2 got to do with me.
Actually it’s not a mystery, that’s the recurring mindset of these people.
It's not a mystery, it's because HS2 is the Northern spur of the grand vision to link the whole of Europe by high speed rail. It was conceived as a European project in the 1950s. That's why it needs to come from the bottom and make it's way to the top. It is believed that there may still be some EU funding involved, making it more difficult to shitcan the project. That's why there's no significant national benefit, let alone a benefit to the North of England or Scotland.
I may disagree with Casino on a lot of things - but I would trust his views on how to get HS2 back on track because that type of project is his day job...
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
I honestly do not know how the remaining PB Tories actually keep hustling with a straight face. "Yes we're an absolute shambles but its my team so I'm going to keep backing them": I can at least understand.
But HY especially keeps saying how right whatever the latest stupid is and even tries to moralise even as he eulogises the latest immorality.
It isn't a case of the Tories will lose. Or even that they deserve to lose. Its that they deserve to be crushed, and increasing numbers of people are reaching that conclusion with increasing clarity.
You of course didn't even vote Conservative in 2019 when they won convincingly
But I voted Tory with eagerness in 2019. And I’ve voted Tory in maybe 8/10 General Elections, and maybe even more often in local elections, with the odd move to Greens, Lib Dem’s, Binface or UKIP (in euros). I’m a fairly core Tory voter (albeit not a Tory: not a Tory member etc)
And you’ve completely lost me. No way I vote Tory in ‘24. And I might even vote Labour, because we need a solid government with a powerful majority and because I want to see the Tories humiliated and crushed. So they learn
It is that bad. Sorry.
Fine, you voted for Blair too I recall.
You will be back voting Conservative again within a year of a Starmer government
Nope. Never voted Blair. Never voted Labour or anything left. I despise the left (and still do)
But now it’s a serious choice of lesser of two hideous evils with the worst evil of all being some appalling hung parliament and the country in an even worse mess
Labour are probably gonna win and they might get my vote to help them achieve a solid majority. Also I really really want to see the Tories suffer for all their gob smacking arrogance and venality, it’s time. You’ve had it coming, now it’s coming
I don’t care if the Tories are reduced to 2 seats. You need to go away in opposition and show some remorse and come up with new ideas. Decide who you are. A humiliation will speed that process
If we go into Opposition (which is hardly surprising after 13 years in power) we will go further right, probably ultimately ending up in Braverman, Badenoch or Mogg as leader (maybe with Barclay first).
And you will agree and cheer with them the entire way. You'll never disavow them or say they've gone too far, you will always make an excuse or say they're right actually. Because that's what reactionaries are like.
Starmer is to the right of Blair, hell, he's been less pro workers' unions than Trump has been during his campaign so far! What more could you want out of a Labour leader as a right winger? There is nothing he could offer you, because your beliefs are about your team winning, not any real ideology or integrity.
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
That to me says HS2 to Manchester is dead - It's a clear case of admission by omission...
Yes, I think the rumours are all true. No Manchester. No Euston. Astonishingly dumb, an unnerving moment of national incompetence
I still think they'll do Euston. It just wouldn't look good to confirm it at the same time as cancelling the Manchester leg.
Amazing detail on HS2
“But consider also the latest, 52-page Diversity, Inclusion and Equality report produced by HS2 Ltd, the organisation struggling to build the high-speed rail route between London and Birmingham. It lists the ways in which it is reducing inequality through the construction of a railway line, featuring a lengthy segment detailing the millions of pounds in grants it has awarded for this purpose. It also sets out its plans to reduce the proportion of white men in the workforce to build the line. By contrast, just 12 pages are devoted towards the rather more pertinent issue of tunnelling costs. Our society is being racialised, even down to infrastructure projects.”
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
The government has also told Trans-Pennine Express to cut the number of services between Leeds and Manchester (and beyond) and bin off a fleet of virtually brans new trains. To "connect all the towns and cities in the north".
Perhaps they'll announce an electric drone service for 2040 ?
The reason for that is someone finally realized that running multiple different train types on the same lines made training workers completely and utterly impossible - because drivers are certified to drive train type X on route Y.
Having a single train type means you only need to train and certify drivers once per route..
They'll still have 3 train types.
They trained drivers on the southern route on 68s, then as soon as they were trained, took the 68s off the route.
There is more of a problem with reducing the route knowledge of the crews, meaning 3 drivers taking turns each, rather than one driving the train all the way.
Reducing the number of services is all about saving cash, rather than providing a service to passengers.
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
The government has also told Trans-Pennine Express to cut the number of services between Leeds and Manchester (and beyond) and bin off a fleet of virtually brans new trains. To "connect all the towns and cities in the north".
Perhaps they'll announce an electric drone service for 2040 ?
The reason for that is someone finally realized that running multiple different train types on the same lines made training workers completely and utterly impossible - because drivers are certified to drive train type X on route Y.
Having a single train type means you only need to train and certify drivers once per route..
They'll still have 3 train types.
They trained drivers on the southern route on 68s, then as soon as they were trained, took the 68s off the route.
There is more of a problem with reducing the route knowledge of the crews, meaning 3 drivers taking turns each, rather than one driving the train all the way.
Reducing the number of services is all about saving cash, rather than providing a service to passengers.
Just seen the purported December timetable.
Back down to 3tph on Manchester-Leeds, from 5tph pre-pandemic.
And one of those 3tph likely to be a fully stopping service through West Yorkshire into Leeds.
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
I think that a policeman has as much right as any other person to kill in self-defence (which is not to prejudge this particular case). A police officer is under no obligation to let himself be killed or seriously injured, by a suspect.
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
That to me says HS2 to Manchester is dead - It's a clear case of admission by omission...
Yes, I think the rumours are all true. No Manchester. No Euston. Astonishingly dumb, an unnerving moment of national incompetence
I still think they'll do Euston. It just wouldn't look good to confirm it at the same time as cancelling the Manchester leg.
Amazing detail on HS2
“But consider also the latest, 52-page Diversity, Inclusion and Equality report produced by HS2 Ltd, the organisation struggling to build the high-speed rail route between London and Birmingham. It lists the ways in which it is reducing inequality through the construction of a railway line, featuring a lengthy segment detailing the millions of pounds in grants it has awarded for this purpose. It also sets out its plans to reduce the proportion of white men in the workforce to build the line. By contrast, just 12 pages are devoted towards the rather more pertinent issue of tunnelling costs. Our society is being racialised, even down to infrastructure projects.”
As it is crucial to know the sexual orientation of people who build railways, I for one am relieved to know that fully 8% of HS2’s “Phase 2 Directors” identify as LGBTQ+. However it is left alarmingly unclear as to how many are into ageplay, bondage and wristwatch fetishes
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
"I would prefer not arming police at all."
I fear a world without armed police might be somewhat worse for the public than one with a few highly-trained armed police.
For instance, how would the police have dealt with a Raoul Moat or Derrick Bird - style event, or various terrorist incidents if the police did not have armed officers?
(I know both Moat and Bird ended up shooting themselves; they may not have done so if they had not been facing armed police, and may have thought they could shoot their way out.)
As for your last paragraph: having not read up on the case/incident, is that an agreed version of events, or just one side of the story?
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
I think that a policeman has as much right as any other person to kill in self-defence (which is not to prejudge this particular case). A police officer is under no obligation to let himself be killed or seriously injured, by a suspect.
I actively disagree. Police are choosing to take a job where they get added responsibilities, added training and added resources to deescalate situations that the average person would not, alongside added power to enact non lethal violence against people that other people do not. A good police officer should be better equipped than a civvy to deal with a situation where they're at risk. The threshold for a police officer should be higher than that of a normal person.
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
LAB got about 150 seats in 1935.
CON in complete meltdown now, could do well to get 150!!
The good thing is whatever the result, even Tories 150-200 seats, the Conservatives will likely be ahead in some polls again within a year of a Labour government.
The economic situation and inflation situation is more like the 1960s and 1970s than 1997, there will be no golden economic period for Starmer, he will become unpopular relatively quickly as PM given the decisions he will have to take and will not get a Blair like honeymoon of any sustained length
So you're now arguing that Sunak is lying when he claims that there are good prospects for economic growth and a return to low inflation from 2025, and that the IMF and others back that up?
The PM's own position is that the next Government (whether his or someone else's) will enjoy a significantly improved economic outlook.
In fact, I would expect growth to be okay between now and 2030. Labours' problem is that it, and Starmer, are pretty unpopular (they're benefitting from Sunak and the Conservatives being hugely unpopular).
Growth was actually okay for most of the sixties and seventies, but governments tended to be unpopular.
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
I honestly do not know how the remaining PB Tories actually keep hustling with a straight face. "Yes we're an absolute shambles but its my team so I'm going to keep backing them": I can at least understand.
But HY especially keeps saying how right whatever the latest stupid is and even tries to moralise even as he eulogises the latest immorality.
It isn't a case of the Tories will lose. Or even that they deserve to lose. Its that they deserve to be crushed, and increasing numbers of people are reaching that conclusion with increasing clarity.
You of course didn't even vote Conservative in 2019 when they won convincingly
But I voted Tory with eagerness in 2019. And I’ve voted Tory in maybe 8/10 General Elections, and maybe even more often in local elections, with the odd move to Greens, Lib Dem’s, Binface or UKIP (in euros). I’m a fairly core Tory voter (albeit not a Tory: not a Tory member etc)
And you’ve completely lost me. No way I vote Tory in ‘24. And I might even vote Labour, because we need a solid government with a powerful majority and because I want to see the Tories humiliated and crushed. So they learn
It is that bad. Sorry.
Fine, you voted for Blair too I recall.
You will be back voting Conservative again within a year of a Starmer government
Nope. Never voted Blair. Never voted Labour or anything left. I despise the left (and still do)
But now it’s a serious choice of lesser of two hideous evils with the worst evil of all being some appalling hung parliament and the country in an even worse mess
Labour are probably gonna win and they might get my vote to help them achieve a solid majority. Also I really really want to see the Tories suffer for all their gob smacking arrogance and venality, it’s time. You’ve had it coming, now it’s coming
I don’t care if the Tories are reduced to 2 seats. You need to go away in opposition and show some remorse and come up with new ideas. Decide who you are. A humiliation will speed that process
If we go into Opposition (which is hardly surprising after 13 years in power) we will go further right, probably ultimately ending up in Braverman, Badenoch or Mogg as leader (maybe with Barclay first).
It won't be remorse it will be proper rightwing red meat which was not there enough for the membership in the Tory government years, 5 years of which were in government with the LDs anyway.
Starmer will then need to hope the economy holds and he gets inflation down enough to keep the rightwing opposition out
Yes. Parties that lose do indeed tend to have a "f*** the electorate" stage before they come to their senses, listen to the electorate, and recover.
Sounds like you're planning on making that first stage very long and painful. Hope you enjoy it!
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
I think that a policeman has as much right as any other person to kill in self-defence (which is not to prejudge this particular case). A police officer is under no obligation to let himself be killed or seriously injured, by a suspect.
I actively disagree. Police are choosing to take a job where they get added responsibilities, added training and added resources to deescalate situations that the average person would not, alongside added power to enact non lethal violence against people that other people do not. A good police officer should be better equipped than a civvy to deal with a situation where they're at risk. The threshold for a police officer should be higher than that of a normal person.
The right to self-defence is fundamental to all human beings.
Decriminalising the murder of police officers is quite simply the daftest idea I've ever read.
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
I think that a policeman has as much right as any other person to kill in self-defence (which is not to prejudge this particular case). A police officer is under no obligation to let himself be killed or seriously injured, by a suspect.
I actively disagree. Police are choosing to take a job where they get added responsibilities, added training and added resources to deescalate situations that the average person would not, alongside added power to enact non lethal violence against people that other people do not. A good police officer should be better equipped than a civvy to deal with a situation where they're at risk. The threshold for a police officer should be higher than that of a normal person.
The issue in the current case is that we don't know on what evidence charges have been brought. Until we do its going to be very hard to comment in any kind of constructive way. No firearm police officer can be just assumed innocent, but on the other hand the standards of proof of wrong-doing on their part should need to consider the full circumstances. Presumably the officer or officers who shot and killed Jean Charles de Menezes did not face prosecution for murder (I don't think they did, and certainly don't recall any suggestion that they should.)
Ignoring the merits of HS2, I think it does say something about the British state that they can't do relatively simple things that it really means to be a functioning country. Infrastructure projects like building trainlines should not be difficult. Succinctly put here:
All the focus on HS2 is on what happens next rather than the last 10 years. Whatever decision is made there are serious questions about the competence of the British state and successive administrations that a 330 mile high-speed train line has proven (apparently) impossible.
That, but also that when the UK decides to give itself a nice infrastructure present, its first instinct is for it to revolve around the already infrastructure heavy capital & environs. Why on earth it didn’t put together a coherent plan to revolutionise transport in the populous north (actually the UK’s lower middle) is a mystery. It might also have played reasonably well with the actual north, as opposed to Scots wondering what the fuck has HS2 got to do with me.
Actually it’s not a mystery, that’s the recurring mindset of these people.
It's not a mystery, it's because HS2 is the Northern spur of the grand vision to link the whole of Europe by high speed rail. It was conceived as a European project in the 1950s. That's why it needs to come from the bottom and make it's way to the top. It is believed that there may still be some EU funding involved, making it more difficult to shitcan the project. That's why there's no significant national benefit, let alone a benefit to the North of England or Scotland.
What a hilarious load of rubbish.
"It was conceived as a European project in the 1950s."
No, it wasn't. There have been various notional pan-Europe schemes over the years; they are very different from HS2.
"It is believed that there may still be some EU funding involved"
Who believes this, and on what evidence? The EU did fund a few million back in about 2015 for investigation works; but aside from that?
"That's why there's no significant national benefit, let alone a benefit to the North of England or Scotland. "
There is significant national benefit, particularly if it is built in full, including both the Manchester and Leeds legs. The more that is cut, the lesser the benefits. Personally, I would have liked to see a little more strategic vision wrt future extensions; this was being done as part of the NPR scheme, but it should all have been part of the initial planning back pre-2015.
The Conservative Party has been demonised as a brand. Very skillfully and relentlessly done by Starmer and others. It doesn't matter who the leader is. I think this sums it up.
Boris Johnson and Liz Truss did a pretty good job of it without any assistance from Labour.
The completely mad thing about this whole farrago is it looks like they took the decision to cancel the Manchester leg and announce it now, completely forgetting that they're in Manchester next week.
Then people have rather awkwardly pointed to the connection and now its as if the line is "OK we won't confirm anything now, we can cancel it officially in two weeks time instead once we've had the Conference, that'll make the awkwardness go away".
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
It's a complicated issue because firearms officers put their lives on the line defending the public and make difficult split second decisions, relying on intelligence that they have to take on trust, and they might sometimes make a mistake. If you want people to sign up for this, they have to feel that they won't be penalised too heavily for making a mistake. Equally though the public needs to know that the police don't act with impunity, and police who act recklessly will be punished. It's a fiendishly difficult path to navigate, and while I understand why armed officers have handed back their guns I think they need to accept that the CPS think their colleague has a case to answer - I would be surprised if the bar for a prosecution weren't quite high - and allow the justice system to do its job.
As it is crucial to know the sexual orientation of people who build railways, I for one am relieved to know that fully 8% of HS2’s “Phase 2 Directors” identify as LGBTQ+. However it is left alarmingly unclear as to how many are into ageplay, bondage and wristwatch fetishes
Do significant numbers of people face routine discrimination at work as a result of their wristwatch fetish?
(I do know someone who'll happily admit to having an actual watch fetish. His oh-so-vulgar Breitling is almost certainly bigger than his cock, so god only knows how that actually works in practice. He doesn't seem to suffer at work for it, though.)
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
LAB got about 150 seats in 1935.
CON in complete meltdown now, could do well to get 150!!
The good thing is whatever the result, even Tories 150-200 seats, the Conservatives will likely be ahead in some polls again within a year of a Labour government.
The economic situation and inflation situation is more like the 1960s and 1970s than 1997, there will be no golden economic period for Starmer, he will become unpopular relatively quickly as PM given the decisions he will have to take and will not get a Blair like honeymoon of any sustained length
So you're now arguing that Sunak is lying when he claims that there are good prospects for economic growth and a return to low inflation from 2025, and that the IMF and others back that up?
The PM's own position is that the next Government (whether his or someone else's) will enjoy a significantly improved economic outlook.
The PM and Hunt have done a good job cutting inflation to 6% but that is still double the rate it was in 1997.
Rising cost of living is making governments across the west unpopular, Starmer's would be no difficult, especially given the pressures it will face to raise tax and spend
Sorry, which part of something costing £1.00 two years ago, £1.10 last year and now costing £1.16 should we be thanking the Tories for?
I think HS2 will likely follow the Edinburgh Trams and Crossrail "journey".
Political cowardice, incompetence, increased costs, lots of whining from the motoring lobby. Years or decades late.
And yet significantly higher patronage than expected. Over capacity immediately. Benefits not included in the business case appear out of nowhere.
Commuters jump out of their cars en masse. Increased footfall in local businesses. Huge economies of scale - the original line has seen a doubling of passengers itself, and Lothian Bus passenger numbers grew too.
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
It's a complicated issue because firearms officers put their lives on the line defending the public and make difficult split second decisions, relying on intelligence that they have to take on trust, and they might sometimes make a mistake. If you want people to sign up for this, they have to feel that they won't be penalised too heavily for making a mistake. Equally though the public needs to know that the police don't act with impunity, and police who act recklessly will be punished. It's a fiendishly difficult path to navigate, and while I understand why armed officers have handed back their guns I think they need to accept that the CPS think their colleague has a case to answer - I would be surprised if the bar for a prosecution weren't quite high - and allow the justice system to do its job.
The Conservative Party has been demonised as a brand. Very skillfully and relentlessly done by Starmer and others. It doesn't matter who the leader is. I think this sums it up.
Chunks of people up and down the country who are ideologically conservative will not be voting for the Conservative Party; either sitting on their hand and moaning or voting for a party counter to their ideology.
The Tories haver Ratnered their own brand. I don't think Starmer has had much to do with it.
Mostly, I don't agree.
Talk us through the shitshow of HS2 these last weeks, then. No one is responsible for that other than HMG
“We’re going to cancel it. No we’re not. Yes we are. No we’re gonna half cancel it. No it’s going to end in Willesden. No it’s gonna end near that Aldi by the betting shop. No that’s all wrong we’re going to delay it by 638 years”
Take away the politics and economics and just look at the PR. The retail display. The terrible pantomime that everyone can see. It’s a shameful mess and it makes them look like pitiful clueless ditherers (even if they’re not; but I think they are)
That’s all on them. There’s no one at home. They need putting out of their misery - and ours
You and I have had our moments, but what a cracking post this is
I've been saying from the off that Sunak is an electoral dud.
Whilst many are coming around to seeing this now, not all are. The main group of those who are so blind that they cannot see the oncoming Tory devastation are Westminster MPs. Many of whom will go back to their constituencies and prepare for either opposition or a new job, unless they start writing letters to Sir Graham rather sharpish.
Amongst local activists (and relatives thereof) in my constituency association, several have told me they can't bring themselves to vote for a Sunak led party that slashes HS2 and puts up taxes.
This is why I see the 24-25% vote share that the current polls are suggesting as about right.
Sunak has cut fuel tax and is proposing to cut IHT.
Inflation is also coming down and interest rates are stabilising, at the end of the day focusing on that and sorting out the economy is far more important than yet another pointless leadership change. Indeed when Truss resigned the Labour lead was actually about 10% more than it is now, so Sunak has improved the Tory poll rating from where Truss left it
Your party is heading for the greatest electoral disaster in British history. It’s like the Titanic and the iceberg except the iceberg has got a big sign on it saying LOOK HERE! ICEBERG!! And no one is dancing on HMS Tory-Titanic they are just taking Fentanyl and Tranq and wanking into the soup
No it isn't, the 1832 election was worse as was 1935 and 1983 for Labour and plenty of DKs still to squeeze and RefUK.
Plus look at the trend around the western world,in Germany the CDU is back ahead after losing power just 2 years ago, in the US Trump is ahead again despite losing power just 3 years ago and his legal problems.
In France, Spain, Canada and NZ the opposition lead polls. The economy is volatile, inflation is high and the mood is anti incumbent
Rishi Sunak: Might not do as badly as Labour in 1935.
Now that's a legacy to be proud of.
I honestly do not know how the remaining PB Tories actually keep hustling with a straight face. "Yes we're an absolute shambles but its my team so I'm going to keep backing them": I can at least understand.
But HY especially keeps saying how right whatever the latest stupid is and even tries to moralise even as he eulogises the latest immorality.
It isn't a case of the Tories will lose. Or even that they deserve to lose. Its that they deserve to be crushed, and increasing numbers of people are reaching that conclusion with increasing clarity.
You of course didn't even vote Conservative in 2019 when they won convincingly
But I voted Tory with eagerness in 2019. And I’ve voted Tory in maybe 8/10 General Elections, and maybe even more often in local elections, with the odd move to Greens, Lib Dem’s, Binface or UKIP (in euros). I’m a fairly core Tory voter (albeit not a Tory: not a Tory member etc)
And you’ve completely lost me. No way I vote Tory in ‘24. And I might even vote Labour, because we need a solid government with a powerful majority and because I want to see the Tories humiliated and crushed. So they learn
It is that bad. Sorry.
Fine, you voted for Blair too I recall.
You will be back voting Conservative again within a year of a Starmer government
Nope. Never voted Blair. Never voted Labour or anything left. I despise the left (and still do)
But now it’s a serious choice of lesser of two hideous evils with the worst evil of all being some appalling hung parliament and the country in an even worse mess
Labour are probably gonna win and they might get my vote to help them achieve a solid majority. Also I really really want to see the Tories suffer for all their gob smacking arrogance and venality, it’s time. You’ve had it coming, now it’s coming
I don’t care if the Tories are reduced to 2 seats. You need to go away in opposition and show some remorse and come up with new ideas. Decide who you are. A humiliation will speed that process
If we go into Opposition (which is hardly surprising after 13 years in power) we will go further right, probably ultimately ending up in Braverman, Badenoch or Mogg as leader (maybe with Barclay first).
It won't be remorse it will be proper rightwing red meat which was not there enough for the membership in the Tory government years, 5 years of which were in government with the LDs anyway.
Starmer will then need to hope the economy holds and he gets inflation down enough to keep the rightwing opposition out
Yes. Parties that lose do indeed tend to have a "f*** the electorate" stage before they come to their senses, listen to the electorate, and recover.
Sounds like you're planning on making that first stage very long and painful. Hope you enjoy it!
Yes but that assumes that the only governments that ever get elected in western nations are liberal centrist ones.
In recent years Trump in the US and Meloni in Italy and Abbott in Australia have won on rightwing nationalist populist platforms.
Trump is back ahead in some US polls. Syriza won in Greece on a leftwing populist platform and even Corbyn came close to doing so here in 2017.
If the economy is good then yes liberal centrist governments are normally re elected over more extremist alternatives, if the economy is not good however even hard right or hard left parties can get elected.
Even Thatcher was considered an unelectable rightwinger in 1975 but the economic situation was such in 1979 she beat the more centrist Callaghan
I think HS2 will likely follow the Edinburgh Trams and Crossrail "journey".
Political cowardice, incompetence, increased costs, lots of whining from the motoring lobby. Years or decades late.
And yet significantly higher patronage than expected. Over capacity immediately. Benefits not included in the business case appear out of nowhere.
Commuters jump out of their cars en masse. Increased footfall in local businesses. Huge economies of scale - the original line has seen a doubling of passengers itself, and Lothian Bus passenger numbers grew too.
BUILD IT
TLDR: HS2 is going to be a disaster but still worth doing, in the end.
Our pessimism on the benefits of public transport investment is a sort of cultural cringe.
The completely mad thing about this whole farrago is it looks like they took the decision to cancel the Manchester leg and announce it now, completely forgetting that they're in Manchester next week.
Then people have rather awkwardly pointed to the connection and now its as if the line is "OK we won't confirm anything now, we can cancel it officially in two weeks time instead once we've had the Conference, that'll make the awkwardness go away".
You know, maybe being a chum from school whose wedding you were best man at isn't the best criterion for choosing a political secretary. Personal chemistry is one thing, but maybe you need some professional distance as well.
I think HS2 will likely follow the Edinburgh Trams and Crossrail "journey".
Political cowardice, incompetence, increased costs, lots of whining from the motoring lobby. Years or decades late.
And yet significantly higher patronage than expected. Over capacity immediately. Benefits not included in the business case appear out of nowhere.
Commuters jump out of their cars en masse. Increased footfall in local businesses. Huge economies of scale - the original line has seen a doubling of passengers itself, and Lothian Bus passenger numbers grew too.
BUILD IT
TLDR: HS2 is going to be a disaster but still worth doing, in the end.
Our pessimism on the benefits of public transport investment is a sort of cultural cringe.
Our pessimism on the benefits of investment is cringe.
We stopped building our motorway network in the 1970s too. Fifty wasted years while our population has grown 25%
We need to get going on investment. Roads, rails, trams, paths - we've neglected them all and we need to invest in all of them sadly.
You can only neglect your infrastructure so long before it creaks.
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
I think that a policeman has as much right as any other person to kill in self-defence (which is not to prejudge this particular case). A police officer is under no obligation to let himself be killed or seriously injured, by a suspect.
I actively disagree. Police are choosing to take a job where they get added responsibilities, added training and added resources to deescalate situations that the average person would not, alongside added power to enact non lethal violence against people that other people do not. A good police officer should be better equipped than a civvy to deal with a situation where they're at risk. The threshold for a police officer should be higher than that of a normal person.
The right to self-defence is fundamental to all human beings.
Decriminalising the murder of police officers is quite simply the daftest idea I've ever read.
I didn't say decriminalising the murder of police officers I just believe that, with their resources and training, they should be better equipped to neutralise a threat non lethally and therefore have a higher bar to pass than the average person when it comes to being able to defend themselves using lethal force.
“Rishi Sunak on speculation that HS2 won't go to Manchester.
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
The government has also told Trans-Pennine Express to cut the number of services between Leeds and Manchester (and beyond) and bin off a fleet of virtually brans new trains. To "connect all the towns and cities in the north".
Perhaps they'll announce an electric drone service for 2040 ?
The reason for that is someone finally realized that running multiple different train types on the same lines made training workers completely and utterly impossible - because drivers are certified to drive train type X on route Y.
Having a single train type means you only need to train and certify drivers once per route..
They'll still have 3 train types.
They trained drivers on the southern route on 68s, then as soon as they were trained, took the 68s off the route.
There is more of a problem with reducing the route knowledge of the crews, meaning 3 drivers taking turns each, rather than one driving the train all the way.
Reducing the number of services is all about saving cash, rather than providing a service to passengers.
The completely mad thing about this whole farrago is it looks like they took the decision to cancel the Manchester leg and announce it now, completely forgetting that they're in Manchester next week.
Then people have rather awkwardly pointed to the connection and now its as if the line is "OK we won't confirm anything now, we can cancel it officially in two weeks time instead once we've had the Conference, that'll make the awkwardness go away".
The rumour is that this was leaked deliberately to harm the government at this moment. Apparently aided and abetted by “the Times” and “spectator”??! However I don’t buy that as the leaks have been coming for months - about various delays and cost cutting measures. Likewise the rumours about Euston date back many months (the Sun ran this story - no Euston - in January)
It’s a cock up. Not a conspiracy. And what a massive cock up
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
FWIW I think what police and some politicians are doing (maybe subconsciously) is, while staying off the direct subject of a forthcoming criminal trial, giving the clearest possible indication to a future jury as to where their attention should be directed in due course.
What none of these folks are saying, including senior Tories, is "We have no idea of the facts, and therefore have no views, let the justice system and jury go ahead with no comments from us".
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
I think that a policeman has as much right as any other person to kill in self-defence (which is not to prejudge this particular case). A police officer is under no obligation to let himself be killed or seriously injured, by a suspect.
I actively disagree. Police are choosing to take a job where they get added responsibilities, added training and added resources to deescalate situations that the average person would not, alongside added power to enact non lethal violence against people that other people do not. A good police officer should be better equipped than a civvy to deal with a situation where they're at risk. The threshold for a police officer should be higher than that of a normal person.
The right to self-defence is fundamental to all human beings.
Decriminalising the murder of police officers is quite simply the daftest idea I've ever read.
I didn't say decriminalising the murder of police officers I just believe that, with their resources and training, they should be better equipped to neutralise a threat non lethally and therefore have a higher bar to pass than the average person when it comes to being able to defend themselves using lethal force.
The law of self-defence works fine in this country. It has a subjective test - did the person raising the defence have a genuine fear of death or GBH, and an objective one - was the amount of force used in all the circumstances reasonable. There is no need to amend it to afford extra protection towards people who are engaged in criminal activity.
Death or serious injury at police hands is very rare.
I think HS2 will likely follow the Edinburgh Trams and Crossrail "journey".
Political cowardice, incompetence, increased costs, lots of whining from the motoring lobby. Years or decades late.
And yet significantly higher patronage than expected. Over capacity immediately. Benefits not included in the business case appear out of nowhere.
Commuters jump out of their cars en masse. Increased footfall in local businesses. Huge economies of scale - the original line has seen a doubling of passengers itself, and Lothian Bus passenger numbers grew too.
BUILD IT
Yes. People are already complaining about crowding on the Elizabeth line. And ridership on the new guided busway system in Belfast has turned out to be so high that it would have justified building a proper tram system instead.
When was the last time that a major infrastructure project flopped? As in, something that was built as planned but produced nothing like the expected benefits?
The Millennium Dome, maybe? But it seems to be having a successful middle age. The Humber Bridge, probably - but has there been anything since then?
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
I think that a policeman has as much right as any other person to kill in self-defence (which is not to prejudge this particular case). A police officer is under no obligation to let himself be killed or seriously injured, by a suspect.
I actively disagree. Police are choosing to take a job where they get added responsibilities, added training and added resources to deescalate situations that the average person would not, alongside added power to enact non lethal violence against people that other people do not. A good police officer should be better equipped than a civvy to deal with a situation where they're at risk. The threshold for a police officer should be higher than that of a normal person.
The right to self-defence is fundamental to all human beings.
Decriminalising the murder of police officers is quite simply the daftest idea I've ever read.
I didn't say decriminalising the murder of police officers I just believe that, with their resources and training, they should be better equipped to neutralise a threat non lethally and therefore have a higher bar to pass than the average person when it comes to being able to defend themselves using lethal force.
The law of self-defence works fine in this country. It has a subjective test - did the person raising the defence have a genuine fear of death or GBH, and an objective one - was the amount of force used in all the circumstances reasonable. There is no need to amend it to afford extra protection towards people who are engaged in criminal activity.
Death or serious injury at police hands is very rare.
Yes and in this instance the CPS believes the objective and subjective tests both justify this going to trial.
We do not need to decriminalise the murder of Police Officers.
We equally do not need to decriminalise murder by Police Officers either.
The brutal reality is that rail absolutely sucks as a medium for modern freight, which is why its not used much already, we're a tiny island so the whole country is 'the last few miles'.
Rail is absolutely fantastic for moving humongous volumes of the same product, from the same source, to the same destination. Nothing comes close to rail for that. IE moving coal from a mine, to a power plant.
For the modern economy it makes no sense whatsoever, which is why rail's share of freight transportation has collapsed following the demise of coal. This is to be welcomed not mourned, as the death of coal is great for our air quality and the environment.
This is a similar reason why rail works well with cities for passengers, because then you're moving high volumes [of people] to the same destination, ie central London. But freight doesn't want to go to the same destination.
If you want to boost capacity for freight then build more motorways for lorries to drive down - with the other 2 lanes of a motorway being available to be well used by the public too.
Not true, for moving large amounts of stuff from a production centre to a distribution plant some distance away. Rail is much better than lorries for that.
That's what I just said isn't it? That rail is good for moving large volumes?
The problem is the modern economy isn't built around large volumes like it was in the days of coal.
In the modern economy of smaller, higher quality volumes, just in time supply chains etc, lorries going directly from A to B - or better from A to B, C, D, E and F work better than trains.
Which is why roads represent about 95% of landbased goods movement if I recall correctly.
Low quality, high volume of the same stuff going to the same place died with coal.
I was thinking more mixed loads from e.g. Sainsburys to a peripheral depot. But yes, it would come under your rubric. It's important not to go all lorry.
I think HS2 will likely follow the Edinburgh Trams and Crossrail "journey".
Political cowardice, incompetence, increased costs, lots of whining from the motoring lobby. Years or decades late.
And yet significantly higher patronage than expected. Over capacity immediately. Benefits not included in the business case appear out of nowhere.
Commuters jump out of their cars en masse. Increased footfall in local businesses. Huge economies of scale - the original line has seen a doubling of passengers itself, and Lothian Bus passenger numbers grew too.
BUILD IT
TLDR: HS2 is going to be a disaster but still worth doing, in the end.
Our pessimism on the benefits of public transport investment is a sort of cultural cringe.
Our pessimism on the benefits of investment is cringe.
We stopped building our motorway network in the 1970s too. Fifty wasted years while our population has grown 25%
We need to get going on investment. Roads, rails, trams, paths - we've neglected them all and we need to invest in all of them sadly.
You can only neglect your infrastructure so long before it creaks.
You will be SHOCKED when you hear about Mr Beeching.
On topic: In the US, wealth is often a negative for Republican candidates, but not for Democratic candidates. Notable examples: FDR, the Kennedys, and, currently, California Governor Gavin Newsom.
There are ways Republicans can lessen that problem. For example, by putting their assets in a blind trust, after they are elected.
Or by showing they are in touch with average people, as George W. Bush did, in a number of ways. For example, by earning his money by providing something popular, a major league baseball team. (From time to time, he sat in the regular seats so he could listen to fans' thoughts about ways to improve their experiences at the ball park.)
HS2: it's to release capacity. And to provide reliability. And also to provide regeneration benefits. Yet weirdly, these three benefits aren't allowed to be considered when weighing costs and benefits. (OK, they can be considered. But they can't be added to the numbers in the 'benefits' column). When you're not allowed to consider the benefits you're specifically trying to achieve in your consideration of costs and benefits, it's no wonder people raise an eyebrow at the paucity of benefits against costs.
Anyway, I can't raise the energy to lament HS2 any more. Let me report instead that my colleague went to Newent for the weekend. Apparently his brother has just relocated there from Harrogate. His brother's in-laws live in Herefordshire and they wanted to be closer to them.
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
It's a complicated issue because firearms officers put their lives on the line defending the public and make difficult split second decisions, relying on intelligence that they have to take on trust, and they might sometimes make a mistake. If you want people to sign up for this, they have to feel that they won't be penalised too heavily for making a mistake. Equally though the public needs to know that the police don't act with impunity, and police who act recklessly will be punished. It's a fiendishly difficult path to navigate, and while I understand why armed officers have handed back their guns I think they need to accept that the CPS think their colleague has a case to answer - I would be surprised if the bar for a prosecution weren't quite high - and allow the justice system to do its job.
The CPS must know plenty about this case that's not in the public domain. If the case is as I think it, then it's a travesty NX121 has been charged. One thing though, I have no idea why the case hasn't jumped the queue - if the CPS feel they sufficient evidence to charge (I'm doubtful but apparently they do) then it strikes me as a case that absolutely needs to be heard as soon as possible both for the family of Kaba and NX121. It's ridiculous it's been delayed for another year. I can't think of a case more in the public interest to be dealt with in a timely fashion quite honestly.
I think HS2 will likely follow the Edinburgh Trams and Crossrail "journey".
Political cowardice, incompetence, increased costs, lots of whining from the motoring lobby. Years or decades late.
And yet significantly higher patronage than expected. Over capacity immediately. Benefits not included in the business case appear out of nowhere.
Commuters jump out of their cars en masse. Increased footfall in local businesses. Huge economies of scale - the original line has seen a doubling of passengers itself, and Lothian Bus passenger numbers grew too.
BUILD IT
Yes. People are already complaining about crowding on the Elizabeth line. And ridership on the new guided busway system in Belfast has turned out to be so high that it would have justified building a proper tram system instead.
When was the last time that a major infrastructure project flopped? As in, something that was built as planned but produced nothing like the expected benefits?
The Millennium Dome, maybe? But it seems to be having a successful middle age. The Humber Bridge, probably - but has there been anything since then?
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
It's a complicated issue because firearms officers put their lives on the line defending the public and make difficult split second decisions, relying on intelligence that they have to take on trust, and they might sometimes make a mistake. If you want people to sign up for this, they have to feel that they won't be penalised too heavily for making a mistake. Equally though the public needs to know that the police don't act with impunity, and police who act recklessly will be punished. It's a fiendishly difficult path to navigate, and while I understand why armed officers have handed back their guns I think they need to accept that the CPS think their colleague has a case to answer - I would be surprised if the bar for a prosecution weren't quite high - and allow the justice system to do its job.
The CPS must know plenty about this case that's not in the public domain. If the case is as I think it, then it's a travesty NX121 has been charged. One thing though, I have no idea why the case hasn't jumped the queue - if the CPS feel they sufficient evidence to charge (I'm doubtful but apparently they do) then it strikes me as a case that absolutely needs to be heard as soon as possible both for the family of Kaba and NX121. It's ridiculous it's been delayed for another year. I can't think of a case more in the public interest to be dealt with in a timely fashion quite honestly.
Every case that’s this serious “deserves” to jump the queue.
The fact that we have these ridiculous delays in the justice system is degrading the functioning of society in all sorts of ways, visible & invisible. Armed police officers going on strike is just a visible symptom.
Yes. People are already complaining about crowding on the Elizabeth line. And ridership on the new guided busway system in Belfast has turned out to be so high that it would have justified building a proper tram system instead.
When was the last time that a major infrastructure project flopped? As in, something that was built as planned but produced nothing like the expected benefits?
The Millennium Dome, maybe? But it seems to be having a successful middle age. The Humber Bridge, probably - but has there been anything since then?
I was pondering that. I can't really think of any major project that has not been used or found a use. Cost overruns and delays abound, but generally the thing that is built gets used. There haven't been many true white elephants that get no use.
On topic: In the US, wealth is often a negative for Republican candidates, but not for Democratic candidates. Notable examples: FDR, the Kennedys, and, currently, California Governor Gavin Newsom.
There are ways Republicans can lessen that problem. For example, by putting their assets in a blind trust, after they are elected.
Or by showing they are in touch with average people, as George W. Bush did, in a number of ways. For example, by earning his money by providing something popular, a major league baseball team. (From time to time, he sat in the regular seats so he could listen to fans' thoughts about ways to improve their experiences at the ball park.)
I'm not sure that's entirely true. Trump tends if anything to exaggerate his wealth and business acumen for political advantage as a Republican, whereas Bloomberg was seen as an elitist who tried to buy the Democratic nomination.
It's possible those on the economic right find it a bit trickier overall if they are wealthy, however, simply because the type of policies they implement tend to be small state and low tax, and the obvious jibe is that this benefits them personally. A wealthy centre/left politician is less likely to be implementing the type of policies that can easily be portrayed as benefiting themselves and their friends.
The missile strike against the Russian Black Sea fleet seems to have been devastating. 34 officers dead including the overall commander. Ukraine new exactly when and where to hit them.
Ukrainian Special Forces confirmed the death of Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov, commander of the Black Sea Fleet. In total 34 officers were killed while another 105 Russians were injured. https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1706264436707664316?s=20
On topic: In the US, wealth is often a negative for Republican candidates, but not for Democratic candidates. Notable examples: FDR, the Kennedys, and, currently, California Governor Gavin Newsom.
There are ways Republicans can lessen that problem. For example, by putting their assets in a blind trust, after they are elected.
Or by showing they are in touch with average people, as George W. Bush did, in a number of ways. For example, by earning his money by providing something popular, a major league baseball team. (From time to time, he sat in the regular seats so he could listen to fans' thoughts about ways to improve their experiences at the ball park.)
I'm not sure that's entirely true. Trump tends if anything to exaggerate his wealth and business acumen for political advantage as a Republican, whereas Bloomberg was seen as an elitist who tried to buy the Democratic nomination.
It's possible those on the economic right find it a bit trickier overall if they are wealthy, however, simply because the type of policies they implement tend to be small state and low tax, and the obvious jibe is that this benefits them personally. A wealthy centre/left politician is less likely to be implementing the type of policies that can easily be portrayed as benefiting themselves and their friends.
In practice, only the wealthy have much chance to get ahead in US politics.
The brutal reality is that rail absolutely sucks as a medium for modern freight, which is why its not used much already, we're a tiny island so the whole country is 'the last few miles'.
Rail is absolutely fantastic for moving humongous volumes of the same product, from the same source, to the same destination. Nothing comes close to rail for that. IE moving coal from a mine, to a power plant.
For the modern economy it makes no sense whatsoever, which is why rail's share of freight transportation has collapsed following the demise of coal. This is to be welcomed not mourned, as the death of coal is great for our air quality and the environment.
This is a similar reason why rail works well with cities for passengers, because then you're moving high volumes [of people] to the same destination, ie central London. But freight doesn't want to go to the same destination.
If you want to boost capacity for freight then build more motorways for lorries to drive down - with the other 2 lanes of a motorway being available to be well used by the public too.
Not true, for moving large amounts of stuff from a production centre to a distribution plant some distance away. Rail is much better than lorries for that.
That's what I just said isn't it? That rail is good for moving large volumes?
The problem is the modern economy isn't built around large volumes like it was in the days of coal.
In the modern economy of smaller, higher quality volumes, just in time supply chains etc, lorries going directly from A to B - or better from A to B, C, D, E and F work better than trains.
Which is why roads represent about 95% of landbased goods movement if I recall correctly.
Low quality, high volume of the same stuff going to the same place died with coal.
I was thinking more mixed loads from e.g. Sainsburys to a peripheral depot. But yes, it would come under your rubric. It's important not to go all lorry.
I have a vague memory of reading an interview in a rail magazine where an entrepreneur from within the rail system was trying to create extra freight capacity. They stated that they could book out every single carload they could put on the system - they had a list of clients who would happily buy whatever extra capacity they could create. Some of them were the large supermarkets IIRC.
It seems we’ve created a system which is completely unable to respond to demand. The fact that the “business” case for HS2 isn”t even allowed to include most of the actual benefits of HS2 is merely one example of a wider problem with infrastructure in the UK.
It’s no wonder our growth has been so anaemic for decades: can’t / won’t build housing. Can’t / won’t build transport (except in London for some reason, and guess what! London has higher GDP/capita growth than the rest of the UK). Can’t / Won’t build energy infrastructure. Can’t / Won’t build the water infrastructure to cope with population growth.
Will this attitude ever shift? Or are we doomed to being a gerontocracy of retired pensioners refusing to allow their children to live the lives they got to lead?
The completely mad thing about this whole farrago is it looks like they took the decision to cancel the Manchester leg and announce it now, completely forgetting that they're in Manchester next week.
Then people have rather awkwardly pointed to the connection and now its as if the line is "OK we won't confirm anything now, we can cancel it officially in two weeks time instead once we've had the Conference, that'll make the awkwardness go away".
The rumour is that this was leaked deliberately to harm the government at this moment. Apparently aided and abetted by “the Times” and “spectator”??! However I don’t buy that as the leaks have been coming for months - about various delays and cost cutting measures. Likewise the rumours about Euston date back many months (the Sun ran this story - no Euston - in January)
It’s a cock up. Not a conspiracy. And what a massive cock up
When Lucy Letby was charged, no nurses stepped back.
This tells us a lot about the ratios of nurses who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
And the number of armed police officers who think they have committed murder to the number who know they haven’t.
It tells us nothing
All it tells us is that police fear that grieving relatives may use social media to lash out at them as individuals and that their senior management are spineless bastards who would throw their officers to the wolves without a second thought
Bollocks.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Yes, but along with that there needs to be an understanding that the job a trained firearms officers do is *not* normal. They may have a matter of seconds or less to make a decision on whether to fire on a target or not - and there may be risks associated with not firing, to themselves, their colleagues, and other members of the public.
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
I would prefer not arming police at all.
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
I think that a policeman has as much right as any other person to kill in self-defence (which is not to prejudge this particular case). A police officer is under no obligation to let himself be killed or seriously injured, by a suspect.
I actively disagree. Police are choosing to take a job where they get added responsibilities, added training and added resources to deescalate situations that the average person would not, alongside added power to enact non lethal violence against people that other people do not. A good police officer should be better equipped than a civvy to deal with a situation where they're at risk. The threshold for a police officer should be higher than that of a normal person.
The right to self-defence is fundamental to all human beings.
Decriminalising the murder of police officers is quite simply the daftest idea I've ever read.
Comments
You will be back voting Conservative again within a year of a Starmer government
More likely they end up on 30-35% after squeezing RefUK and DKs
"I'm not going to comment on that type of speculation, but we're absolutely committed to leveling up... with record amounts of funding... we're connecting all the towns & cities in the north.. "”
https://x.com/haggis_uk/status/1706237434382438504?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Reminder: this is the week the Tories have their conference… in… Manchester
On a basic political level the ineptitude is staggering
At the local elections my local Lib Dem candidate displayed no NIMBYism. Their material was all about schools and other local concerns, not stopping construction. So I lent them my vote.
I haven't decided how I will vote in the next General Election, but I have my principles and I will be guided by them, not the colour of the rosette.
If you have the power and responsibilities of an armed police officer, you have signed up for higher scrutiny and standards. Their job, that they chose to do, gives them the ability to deprive people of their freedoms before a trial and, in some cases, their lives. If that is done with impunity, cops are nothing but another street gang and their boss just happens to be the government. Police need to be held to a higher standard than your typical civvy because of that responsibility and power - not a lower standard - and should be more willing to sacrifice themselves and their individual pride for the consent of the public - not less.
To protect and serve means you have signed up to put yourself in harms way instead of letting bad things happen to the average Joe, and even suspects should be treated as the average Joe because they are not guilty until a court finds them guilty. Importing this US mindset that nothing is worth more than the life of a cop is a sure fire way to get American style policing - excess brutality and a feeling of being above the law.
Recognize anybody in the first picture?
Watch the videos to see who that is in his younger days. 😂
https://x.com/NatalkaKyiv/status/1706029844335608008?s=20
But now it’s a serious choice of lesser of two hideous evils with the worst evil of all being some appalling hung parliament and the country in an even worse mess
Labour are probably gonna win and they might get my vote to help them achieve a solid majority. Also I really really want to see the Tories suffer for all their gob smacking arrogance and venality, it’s time. You’ve had it coming, now it’s coming
I don’t care if the Tories are reduced to 2 seats. You need to go away in opposition and show some remorse and come up with new ideas. Decide who you are. A humiliation will speed that process
You are a complete hypocrite to cast any vote for the LDs
Rishi is giving off the same fetid smell.
(FFS. This stuff is not difficult to do adequately. I'm a suburban science master and I can see what's wrong...)
If my candidate is NIMBY I will not vote for them, I will spoil my ballot if need be, but there's no hypocrisy in that.
The govt's HS2 policy seems to have been inspired by Victoria Wood:
"We'd like to apologise to viewers in the North. It must be awful for them."
Having a single train type means you only need to train and certify drivers once per route..
Whilst I'd blooming well hope that they're trained to make good instinctive decisions, they cannot be trained to always make perfect instinctive decisions.
And the problem with court cases over things like this is that a decision that had to be made in minutes or seconds, can be gone over for a matter of days, weeks or months in court - and with the benefit of information the officer may not have had (e.g. the presence or absence of a weapon on the suspect).
I know very little about this case in question, and I doubt we'll hear much more if substance before the court case. It may be the officer in question did murder/kill and innocent man; or it might be he made the wrong decision for understandable, if regrettably tragic, reasons.
This is also an argument for not arming all police: their training standards and personal competence need to be very high.
They buggered up the mortgage market at a time where their voter coalition was made up of traditional Tories and young / middle aged professionals with mortgages who didn't want the market shock everyone warned Corbyn would bring and had been brought in through the Cameroonian reform times. They lost the second part of that coalition the moment Truss dropped her mini budget, and have only alienated them further since.
The problem is the modern economy isn't built around large volumes like it was in the days of coal.
In the modern economy of smaller, higher quality volumes, just in time supply chains etc, lorries going directly from A to B - or better from A to B, C, D, E and F work better than trains.
Which is why roads represent about 95% of landbased goods movement if I recall correctly.
Low quality, high volume of the same stuff going to the same place died with coal.
(I wish I was joking)
What sort of mitigations can we put in place in order to avoid this sort of situation with future projects? Perhaps some sort of independent delivery authority, which would take charge once the initial political decision to proceed has been taken?
They trained drivers on the southern route on 68s, then as soon as they were trained, took the 68s off the route.
There is more of a problem with reducing the route knowledge of the crews, meaning 3 drivers taking turns each, rather than one driving the train all the way.
Reducing the number of services is all about saving cash, rather than providing a service to passengers.
“But consider also the latest, 52-page Diversity, Inclusion and Equality report produced by HS2 Ltd, the organisation struggling to build the high-speed rail route between London and Birmingham. It lists the ways in which it is reducing inequality through the construction of a railway line, featuring a lengthy segment detailing the millions of pounds in grants it has awarded for this purpose. It also sets out its plans to reduce the proportion of white men in the workforce to build the line. By contrast, just 12 pages are devoted towards the rather more pertinent issue of tunnelling costs. Our society is being racialised, even down to infrastructure projects.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/23/whitehall-wokery-wont-stopped-unless-overhaul-equality-act/
This case has been brought after a year of investigating. It is unlikely that it has been brought without good evidence of wrongdoing, purposeful or otherwise.
My general feelings around firearmed officers is that the only situation you shoot is when civilian life is in jeopardy - either with someone clearly threatening people or seeming equipped and intending to do so. If the person is threatening the cop, it is part of the job as a cop to take that person in alive and for them to go through the process of justice, not for extrajudicial killing.
In this case Chris Kaba was shot in the head for the "crime" of being in a car registered to him that police had linked to a "firearm incident" and being somewhat irate at being stopped by the police suddenly, something that has probably happened to him often in his life for no good reason. No firearm was found on the scene. Again, even if the man was threatening the cop he was talking to - cops sign up for that. We do not have the death penalty, and being pissy to a police officer should not be a death sentence.
I've looked upon the most northerly point, shortly after getting dive-bombed by some bonxies
It won't be remorse it will be proper rightwing red meat which was not there enough for the membership in the Tory government years, 5 years of which were in government with the LDs anyway.
Starmer will then need to hope the economy holds and he gets inflation down enough to keep the rightwing opposition out
Actually it’s not a mystery, that’s the recurring mindset of these people.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/25/we-need-trillions-of-dollars-to-fight-the-climate-crisis-this-is-my-plan-to-raise-it
And he SUCKS at it
Starmer is to the right of Blair, hell, he's been less pro workers' unions than Trump has been during his campaign so far! What more could you want out of a Labour leader as a right winger? There is nothing he could offer you, because your beliefs are about your team winning, not any real ideology or integrity.
BT chief networks officer suggested ethnic diversity influences office location
Chief Executive Allison Kirkby could pocket up to £220,000 for diversity targets
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12553851/BT-executive-plans-cut-1-000-jobs-rural-areas-boost-workforce-diversity.html
Back down to 3tph on Manchester-Leeds, from 5tph pre-pandemic.
And one of those 3tph likely to be a fully stopping service through West Yorkshire into Leeds.
Yuck.
https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/transpennine-express-to-stop-using-loco-hauled-push-pull-trains-in-december/64819.article
I fear a world without armed police might be somewhat worse for the public than one with a few highly-trained armed police.
For instance, how would the police have dealt with a Raoul Moat or Derrick Bird - style event, or various terrorist incidents if the police did not have armed officers?
(I know both Moat and Bird ended up shooting themselves; they may not have done so if they had not been facing armed police, and may have thought they could shoot their way out.)
As for your last paragraph: having not read up on the case/incident, is that an agreed version of events, or just one side of the story?
Sounds like you're planning on making that first stage very long and painful. Hope you enjoy it!
Decriminalising the murder of police officers is quite simply the daftest idea I've ever read.
"It was conceived as a European project in the 1950s."
No, it wasn't. There have been various notional pan-Europe schemes over the years; they are very different from HS2.
"It is believed that there may still be some EU funding involved"
Who believes this, and on what evidence? The EU did fund a few million back in about 2015 for investigation works; but aside from that?
"That's why there's no significant national benefit, let alone a benefit to the North of England or Scotland. "
There is significant national benefit, particularly if it is built in full, including both the Manchester and Leeds legs. The more that is cut, the lesser the benefits. Personally, I would have liked to see a little more strategic vision wrt future extensions; this was being done as part of the NPR scheme, but it should all have been part of the initial planning back pre-2015.
Then people have rather awkwardly pointed to the connection and now its as if the line is "OK we won't confirm anything now, we can cancel it officially in two weeks time instead once we've had the Conference, that'll make the awkwardness go away".
(I do know someone who'll happily admit to having an actual watch fetish. His oh-so-vulgar Breitling is almost certainly bigger than his cock, so god only knows how that actually works in practice. He doesn't seem to suffer at work for it, though.)
Political cowardice, incompetence, increased costs, lots of whining from the motoring lobby. Years or decades late.
And yet significantly higher patronage than expected. Over capacity immediately. Benefits not included in the business case appear out of nowhere.
Commuters jump out of their cars en masse. Increased footfall in local businesses. Huge economies of scale - the original line has seen a doubling of passengers itself, and Lothian Bus passenger numbers grew too.
BUILD IT
In recent years Trump in the US and Meloni in Italy and Abbott in Australia have won on rightwing nationalist populist platforms.
Trump is back ahead in some US polls. Syriza won in Greece on a leftwing populist platform and even Corbyn came close to doing so here in 2017.
If the economy is good then yes liberal centrist governments are normally re elected over more extremist alternatives, if the economy is not good however even hard right or hard left parties can get elected.
Even Thatcher was considered an unelectable rightwinger in 1975 but the economic situation was such in 1979 she beat the more centrist Callaghan
Our pessimism on the benefits of public transport investment is a sort of cultural cringe.
We stopped building our motorway network in the 1970s too. Fifty wasted years while our population has grown 25%
We need to get going on investment. Roads, rails, trams, paths - we've neglected them all and we need to invest in all of them sadly.
You can only neglect your infrastructure so long before it creaks.
It’s a cock up. Not a conspiracy. And what a massive cock up
What none of these folks are saying, including senior Tories, is "We have no idea of the facts, and therefore have no views, let the justice system and jury go ahead with no comments from us".
Death or serious injury at police hands is very rare.
When was the last time that a major infrastructure project flopped? As in, something that was built as planned but produced nothing like the expected benefits?
The Millennium Dome, maybe? But it seems to be having a successful middle age. The Humber Bridge, probably - but has there been anything since then?
We do not need to decriminalise the murder of Police Officers.
We equally do not need to decriminalise murder by Police Officers either.
The justice system needs to run its course.
There are ways Republicans can lessen that problem. For example, by putting their assets in a blind trust, after they are elected.
Or by showing they are in touch with average people, as George W. Bush did, in a number of ways. For example, by earning his money by providing something popular, a major league baseball team. (From time to time, he sat in the regular seats so he could listen to fans' thoughts about ways to improve their experiences at the ball park.)
Yet weirdly, these three benefits aren't allowed to be considered when weighing costs and benefits. (OK, they can be considered. But they can't be added to the numbers in the 'benefits' column). When you're not allowed to consider the benefits you're specifically trying to achieve in your consideration of costs and benefits, it's no wonder people raise an eyebrow at the paucity of benefits against costs.
Anyway, I can't raise the energy to lament HS2 any more. Let me report instead that my colleague went to Newent for the weekend. Apparently his brother has just relocated there from Harrogate. His brother's in-laws live in Herefordshire and they wanted to be closer to them.
https://www.itv.com/news/2023-09-25/canadian-parliament-apologises-after-accidentally-honouring-wwii-nazi
One thing though, I have no idea why the case hasn't jumped the queue - if the CPS feel they sufficient evidence to charge (I'm doubtful but apparently they do) then it strikes me as a case that absolutely needs to be heard as soon as possible both for the family of Kaba and NX121. It's ridiculous it's been delayed for another year. I can't think of a case more in the public interest to be dealt with in a timely fashion quite honestly.
The fact that we have these ridiculous delays in the justice system is degrading the functioning of society in all sorts of ways, visible & invisible. Armed police officers going on strike is just a visible symptom.
As bad as things are in the UK for Sunak, Trudeau has had a worse week of it.
Hosting Zelensky was the only thing that went right for Trudeau after a horrendous time, and he's even ballsed that up.
I wonder who'll be gone first? Trudeau or Sunak.
It's possible those on the economic right find it a bit trickier overall if they are wealthy, however, simply because the type of policies they implement tend to be small state and low tax, and the obvious jibe is that this benefits them personally. A wealthy centre/left politician is less likely to be implementing the type of policies that can easily be portrayed as benefiting themselves and their friends.
Ukrainian Special Forces confirmed the death of Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov, commander of the Black Sea Fleet. In total 34 officers were killed while another 105 Russians were injured.
https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1706264436707664316?s=20
It seems we’ve created a system which is completely unable to respond to demand. The fact that the “business” case for HS2 isn”t even allowed to include most of the actual benefits of HS2 is merely one example of a wider problem with infrastructure in the UK.
It’s no wonder our growth has been so anaemic for decades: can’t / won’t build housing. Can’t / won’t build transport (except in London for some reason, and guess what! London has higher GDP/capita growth than the rest of the UK). Can’t / Won’t build energy infrastructure. Can’t / Won’t build the water infrastructure to cope with population growth.
Will this attitude ever shift? Or are we doomed to being a gerontocracy of retired pensioners refusing to allow their children to live the lives they got to lead?