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Sunak gets this Radio Manchester interview very wrong – politicalbetting.com
Sunak gets this Radio Manchester interview very wrong – politicalbetting.com
Rishi Sunak repeatedly refuses to answer questions from BBC Manchester about whether he will scrap HS2 to the city and just talks about filling potholes instead pic.twitter.com/ncqsMknxxX
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Oh, and first.
Electoral dud. Needs to be replaced next month....
Johnson made people who often don't think very deeply about politics (and I meant this utterly non-pejoratively, I think we overthink it most of the time here on pb) that he was 'on their side'.
It wasn't about money, it was about not appearing to be an identikit PPE clone.
This interview was an utter catastrophe. (Note: could not be bothered to listen to it.)
It’s just that he ineptly comes up with shit ideas which can’t be defended (or even in this case, publicly disclosed).
But the Tories are in such a hole they need a brilliant charismatic leader to save them and Sunak certainly isn’t that
Still, could be worse, we could be America with Biden Trump 2.0
Sunak doesn't get the North.
🤷🏼♂️🤷🏼♂️
I think it’s “normal” for the UK, but bloody weird if you live outside it.
Chopping down one old tree is a tragedy (which I agree with).
Chopping down lots of old trees, in the Amazon or our own forests, is just doing business.
Like, this feels indicative of why we aren't dealing with the ecological and climate crisis we're in - people generally cannot and do not think about impacts of things at scale.
Truss made a terrible mistake with the mini budget, but then course corrected replacing Kwarteng with Hunt, but by then people were done with her despite the fact that economically Sunak hasn't changed much from Truss. But she'd be 1000% better as PM than Sunak.
I think Sunak has been getting data from Facebook, which is where this cohort are online.
Could still be a planning dispute etc. Need not be local - English Heritage and the National Park cover large areas.
That's simply a part of the human condition.
Corbyn also cost the Lib Dems votes in the Blue Wall by frightening some Tories into not voting for them.
The Tories had the perfect alignment of factors in 2019 that led to that large majority .
But you're right. Cameron got the North. (Or at least Osborne did, and told him about it). Boris got the North, or at least saw to it that he seemed to get it. Truss got the north. May probably didn't get the north but was too canny not to get caught out not getting it most of the time. Sunak seems to see the North as a far suburb of London.
The problem on display in that interview isn't about one man's media performance, but the wider Downing Street operation. The kite has very clearly been flown on scrapping HS2 to Manchester. That was inexplicably done on the eve of a Tory conference in Manchester, and the PM has been put on BBC Radio Manchester without an adequate answer (because there isn't one) to a totally obvious question. So he's blustered through it as he must - but Downing Street shouldn't have been so politically inept to have got him into a situation where that's his only option.
What will the Speccy do?
However the more I think about it the more this makes sense. I can’t see a “mad local landowner” being mad enough to do this. Or stupid enough
It’s not like the Crooked House where there is some selfish gain accrued
So my guess is either an ecological statement or sheer brutal vandalism for the lolz
1. They’re more likely to be caught and
2. We will have someone to put in a medieval jail for 390 years
Eabhal would be pleased to know a big part of that reason is roads. Tree lined roads tend to be a big part of tree planting, indeed at one stage in the 70s when we were last investing in our infrastructure sufficiently I believe there were concerns the country was running out of trees to plant to go with the roads.
Want to get to Net Zero? More roads helps with that, since the cars on the roads will be running off zero-emission electricity within a few years, while more trees alongside more roads means net negative emissions rather than net zero. Win/win, we get infrastructure, the planet gets saved, who wouldn't love that?
I can't see any other reason why he'd be so desperately determined to dither at this point.
I think we all knew your response to the Sycamore would be unhinged, but that is quite something.
Leon - this isn't you playing with AI is it?
Certain things need to be done by the public sector, and those that there are should be done well.
The biggest problem with the public sector is when it tries to get involved with everything and becomes jack of all trades, master of none.
Do less, but do it well. That's my philosophy.
Public infrastructure, along with public defence, public security, public education and public healthcare should be the primary responsibilities of the state. The problem is the state too often isn't doing what it should be doing and is cutting investment in infrastructure to feed day to day expenditure on other stuff which is completely self-defeating.
Happens all the time pre-planning applications.
Likely to get pulled up on ecology grounds? Clear the site before applying. Never mind the Tree Preservation Order. Crooked House but with vegetation.
We're currently having fun with a solar farm application on a local wildlife site (unimproved grassland with rig and furrow).
They thought it would be a good idea to just plough it up first to avoid any objections.
FPTP doesn't provide absolute protection.
As I recall, they were blocked from doing so by a lawsuit. I thought at the time, and still think, that it sounds like an experiment worth trying.
In Scotland they always voted Labour (since Thatcher, at any rate) right up until the point they) didn't. Labour took the block Scottish vote for granted.
The red wall always voted Labour, right up until they didn't. Labour took the block red wall vote for granted.
The Tories had their shot with the Red Wall and have spent the last few years ballsing it up. It was never going to be easy to reverse generations of London first, and the devil take the rest, but HS2 is at least something. And now it seems its not.
Its not clear red wallers are flocking back to Labour because of Labour. I sense its a get rid of the gobshites we have now time. I think the changes in the Red Wall will lead to some interesting politics going forward.
But today? Most of the questions could reasonably have been foreseen, but he didn't have answers for them. He didn't even stall or bluster - he got irritated, talked over the interviewers, and complained that they were asking the wrong questions.
There are more trees today than there were a century ago in the UK. Don't trust me? Ask the Woodland Trust.
Part of that is deliberately planting woodlands, but a big part as well is building roads.
As I've said I live in a new town that is being built, one of not enough we need more, which was just over a decade ago farmland. All the roads that are built, all the housing estates etc are tree lined. There are trees everywhere, which is deliberate and has been part of how we build infrastructure for a long time, just as much as the LTNs you love.
Replacing farmed fields with developed new towns, roads etc means not just more infrastructure and more housing for people to live in, buildings for businesses etc, but much, much more trees, not fewer.
Conversely, you have seats like Edgbaston, Canterbury, Putney, that are probably never going back to the Conservatives. Just as working class homeowners in the Red Wall realised they were Conservatives, so middle class graduates in those other seats realised they were socialists.
Just now:
“Man, 44, and woman, 34, arrested on suspicion of arson plot after Crooked House pub fire”
https://x.com/lbc/status/1707384942664020324?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Even Brown Hare were brought over by the Romans.
On a serious note, whoever was responsible is a complete tosser. Disgraceful vandalism
Labour was able to hold that coalition together with its more metropolitan liberal voters as the economics managed to trump social attitudes in the Red Wall .
That changed as the Tories under Johnson looked like they were going to address the economic asks of the Red Wall.
Labours recovery there is down I think to a combination of factors . Leveling up hasn’t happened , Starmer is seen as more patriotic and a safer pair of hands on defence .
I don’t see Starmer losing many Red Wall voters if he wants a closer EU relationship, as long as that is seen as bringing economic benefits and re-join is ruled out .
Brexit hasn’t delivered for the Red Wall . For that reason the Tories attacking Labour on the EU just isn’t going to resonate as it might have a few years back .
I
'm not an inhabitant of, say, Rùm, but my reaction is that insect screening isn't much needed as one wouldn't leav e the doors open in midgy weather. However, from my experience of when one could stay at Kinloch Castle there, having it on the bathroom window opening bit would be a very good idea in the late summer. One does not like midges when one has just had a bath or is brushing one's teeth shirtless.
There's actually some discussion going on about Sycamore at the moment. It was previously enemy number one in native woodland and a management plan would normally suggest its removal over time.
However, it does well in hot conditions and might actually survive better than some native trees given climate change.
Same with Beech.
A year or so ago, I learned that about 1 in 10 would-be doctors who had completed their studies were unable to find a hospital that would accept them as interns. Which meant they typically had enormous debts, but no way to become a doctor so they could pay them off. Unless there is something I don't know about that 10 percent, this strikes me as both wasteful, and terribly unfair.
The crooked house miscreants are being charged with “arson endangering lives” - which carries an automatic prison sentence, almost certainly a long one
What a terrible shame
Phase 1 of HS2 was ludicrously expensive because a) the Treasury insisted on shifting all the risk to the contractors, b) the initial mad decision to spec for 400km/hr trains and c) caving in to nimbies & burying most of the route in either cuttings or tunnels so no one ever had to have their views sullied by being able to see a train.
I’m feeling quite emotional about vandals coz of that tree
Don't drop the soap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMLona9oelM
All they need to say is the project will be reviewed in the next Parliament. Is it really so difficult?
I mentioned in an earlier post that our 4th of July parades usually include a group dressed in traditional Scottish clothes. Here's an example from 2008:
Two thoughts on Scots in the US. According to a 1996 book, "The Millionaire Next Door", Scots have done very well, financially, in the US, having a much higher proportion of millionaires than, for example, people of English descent.
(The book is dated, and I am not sure I would accept the exact numbers even for that date, but I think the conclusion that Scots have done very well here is accurate.)
Second, I can not think of an example of a serious conflict between Scots and English in the US. It's a big country, so no doubt there have been some, but I haven't heard of any.
Partly, of course, that's because there is so much intermarriage. For example, my oldest sister (half German, a quarter English, and a quarter Danish) married a "Mac".
On this one, though, I think if they ever find the culprit they might think about other offences. Section 78 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 puts the offence of public nuisance on a statutory basis (it was common law before and a bit trickier to prosecute). That covers "serious harm to the public" where serious harm covers "serious distress, serious annoyance, serious inconvenience or serious loss of amenity."
You'd struggle to get someone on public nuisance if it was a protected tree on private land, but an ultra-prominent tree like this? I think there's a reasonably good case. It's punishable by up to ten years in prison.
If they do it now, they're probably hoping Labour commit to keeping it, and then it becomes a Labour spending story.
"Why are Labour spending £100bn on this huge project to cut a few minutes off travel times to London? Same old Labour - spending your money, even in a cost of living crisis!"
Michael Gambon was an excellent actor who died of natural causes at the age of 82. That's sad, but it does come to us all.
Now, if he'd died due to some arsehole sneaking up in the middle of the night and felling him with a chainsaw, I suspect the anger would not just meet but exceed that on display over this tree.
To be honest - Gambon had a fantastic career and life, and died in his eighties. That we should have such a life. (Although certain PBers may wish a bit more than 82, as they are rather closer to that age than most on here...)
I appreciate not all people get that, but they should also understand that for some of us it's an important part of the human experience.