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Sunak’s ratings fall after his big week – politicalbetting.com
Sunak’s ratings fall after his big week – politicalbetting.com
Rishi Sunak's approval rating is -16%.Rishi Sunak Approval Rating (8 October):Disapprove: 46% (+5)Approve: 30% (-1)Net: -16% (-6)Changes +/- 1 Octoberhttps://t.co/nUfSfyQSTY pic.twitter.com/IXTnazQPrX
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Sunak has no understanding of normal people and no ability to communicate with them.
Hopeless.
I don’t know about you but when I am on my private jet I always annotate important documents without taking the top off my pen.
Remoaners will undoubtedly remember his comedic display trying to pay for fuel and point to his inability to use a pen and wonder what planet he lives on. But they are wrong wrong wrong.
Especially if he's planning on the appropriate infrastructure of new motorways to link those new towns to the rest of the country.
I won't be holding my breath though.
That's about the same stunt that Brown tried during the Tory Conference before he chickened out of the election that never was after a marginal poll showed how badly he might do in it.
It's about building communities.
Building houses means you get homes, but they're cr@p to live in. Building communities means you build houses in areas people want to live in, with the facilities they need. And that requires infrastructure, both large and small.
S106 is a good idea, but I fear it has let governments - both local and national - to just chuck stuff onto developer's backs. Building communities requires more than can be got from developers, and that means governments need to pay.
Cramming more houses onto smaller plots, with f-all facilities, just leads to problems in a decade or two.
If there's a shortage of homes, schools, hospitals etc then the responsible thing to do is seek an increase of each.
Not say that you can't have a new hospital unless the NHS pays for new schools and homes too.
Nor that you can't have a new school unless the schools budget pays for new hospitals and homes too.
Nor say that you can't have a new home unless those who need a new home alone pay for a hospital and school too.
Its the entire taxpayers responsibility to pay for schools and hospitals, not new homes alone. Houses don't need schools, children do.
This current failed attitude is why we never get any investment in anything.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-10/israel-hamas-conflict-was-a-test-for-musk-s-x-and-it-failed
...Mike Rothschild, a conspiracy theory researcher who has studied viral falsehoods on social media, said that news of the attack on Israel was “the first real test of Elon Musk’s version of Twitter, and it failed spectacularly.”
X, under Musk’s ownership since October 2022, has made changes to its content safety policies, with the consequences now glaringly apparent in this moment of geopolitical crisis, researchers said. Over the past year, the company loosened its platform’s rules, cut trust-and-safety employees after previously saying it would expand the team, reinstated once-banned accounts and allowed people to pay for a checkmark on the social network. Though falsehoods about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have spread on social media platforms across the internet, the researchers said the effect on X stood out as false posts became unavoidable.
“It's now almost impossible to tell what's a fact, what's a rumor, what's a conspiracy theory, and what's trolling,” Rothschild said. “Musk's changes haven't just made X useless during a time of crisis. They've made it actively worse."..
For public transport, we still rely on busses, and are at the whim of Stagecoach (who have withdrawn many of the services, and cut the routes through the village), and Whippet, who are good but small. We have no railway, no tram,; not even a good cycle route to Cambridge.
Any new town should have excellent transport links. Nearby, the new Northstowe should have the misguided bus link into Cambridge (along an old railway line, natch). Waterbeach New Town is going to be served by moving the existing station a short distance north. All these are paid for by the council, not developers.
We cannot - and must not - so new towns on the cheap.
But that should not be the "developers" responsibility.
If you want community infrastructure, then it is the responsibility of the entire community, the entire country, to pay for that - not just pile the burden on those who get a new house all alone while those who live in secure housing that was built years ago abscond from any responsibilities.
Any sentient being is an improvement on him
The issue is more that people don't yet see Starmer. If my friend is right then it will come through during the GE campaign.
What's abundantly clear to all of us who actually live in this country Robert @rcs1000 is that the more we see of Sunak, the worse he appears.
Cricket is much less divisive than Israel and Palestine.
As someone who lives in a compact town centred around a railway station (I suspect we have among the highest rail journeys:population ratios anywhere in the country) I think this is a pretty good idea.
Caribbean war heroes who fought for Britain - only to face racism and execution
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/caribbean-war-heroes-who-fought-31097062
British West India Regiments Heritage Trust on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/BWIRHT/
She comes across as a comedian, rather than a serious politician. Even if the joke got a bunch of laughs from the hall, she isn’t convincing swing voters that she’s wanting to be a senior member of the next government. If they wanted a comic, there’s plenty of Labour-supporting professionals they could have hired to make the same joke.
Oh. Wait.
No you didn't.
Warrington is from the last generation of "new towns" and has 2 major railway links, both to Manchester and Liverpool, and to London and Edinburgh. It also has the M6, M56 and the M62.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough for now, the absence of new infrastructure shouldn't be allowed to stand in the way of new homes. But far, far better is to build the infrastructure.
Don't just assume everyone uses railways, or cars, people use a mix so get all involved.
That's the theory but if you wish to continue being unnecessarily snide (probably not your finest post), I shall just leave you to it.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/09/ukraine-russia-war-live-putin-shelling-zelensky-latest/
The difference between the Soviet-era tanks and the Western models that the Ukranians now have, is that the Soviet tanks get blown to bits by a single hit on them, often with loss of life, thanks to the way they’re constructed with the ammunition under the barrel; whereas the Western tanks are designed to be, and often are, repairable after being hit by artillery fire, and the crew can usually escape.
It's very far from the worst thought out policies we've seen in recent years.
You have decided it’s a good idea to live in a town centred around a railway station. This announcement validates your choice. Therefore you think it’s a good idea
(Not commenting on the substance of urban planning)
He might completely lack any charisma genes, but he doesn't appear utterly out of touch.
And his communication skills, in terms of messaging coherence, are much superior to Sunak's.
The "good enough" assessment probably applies.
Plenty of politicians are/were very different people on the one to one level. The most extreme case I can think of in British politics was Ian Paisley. Apparently, a Catholic constituent who knocked on his door would often get a pot of tea made by the man himself, their problems listened to and fixed.
On the “mass market”, one of the foremost proponents of anti-Catholic bigotry in public life.
Numerous times I have heard anecdotes about how X is really a lovely person up close. But their public persona is the one they have to fight elections with.
https://www.itv.com/news/2023-10-09/israel-violence-casts-shadow-over-labour-conference-as-rayner-hosts-silence
He's not manifestly incompetent. He's managed his (fractious) party well.
I have little doubt he will win the next General Election, and perform adequately.
But Mr Charisma he is not. There is no vaulting rhetoric. No sense of purpose.
He's just fine.
Acceptable, under the circumstances.
The Soviet theory was that tank crews were as expendable as the tank, thanks to mass conscription, and that the best idea was to make the tank as light/small as possible. Experience in the crew was not considered highly - the tank would provide the capability, and moderate training, the ability.
The Western philosophy was that experienced tanks crews were very valuable and that a dead tank with a live crew was a valuable outcome.
50 years and many billions later, both got exactly what they wanted.
Rayner is a star. She has convictions, authenticity and style, she is intelligent, canny and organised. No wonder she is popular.
ASLEF will be a tougher nut to crack.
And good morning to all! Sunny here with a mostly clear blue sky. Just a little high cloud.
See also: BoJo's determination to avoid fights he risked losing.
Also see also: Sunak's problem being, in part, that the Premiership sort of fell into his lap.
As an example of where S106 can go wrong, see this story (yes, DM...). The first houses in Nortstowe (a development northwest of Cambridge) have been occupied for six years now, and it has no shops, pubs, cafes, public toilets, or even a GP practice.
I know Northstowe fairly well (I've run around all of it as of a few months ago, but the ****ards keep on opening new roads...), and although I'm not a fan of the architecture, the layout seems fairly well designed. But it's terrible that a place that is housing thousands does not have the basic amenities.
It's fine for the council to say: a 'community centre building will be provided before the 900th home was occupied, or a sports pavilion before the 500th - when there are 1,200 homes occupied and they have not been built.
The council should be able to make the developer stop all building works on houses - and sales of completed houses - until it meets its obligations.
S106 simply doesn't work very well, even on large developments.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12306249/Englands-biggest-new-town-no-shops-cafes-GP-surgeries-SIX-YEARS.html
It is a capitulation to the developers.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/labour-s-plan-for-the-builders-not-the-blockers-is-a-capitulation-to-developers/ar-AA1hXt3l?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=7a5de91287df4d8793cd8a6466726532&ei=8
The Juniors voted 98% for a second six months of strikes. This is not being marshalled by a few Trotskyite shop stewards, this is a union that finally started listening to its members.
That does not make her a poor politician though..
I wonder if Starmer will have Attlee's ruthlessness with colleagues who are 'not up to it' - or indeed whether he will be up to it himself ?
So taking on more is not going to be something many councils want to do.
All they will want from new developments is the extra revenue from council tax.
How they were down to earth and surprisingly funny.
Yet they can never convey it in public and it never comes through in an election either.
Exclusive: Labour leader to pledge biggest expansion of devolution since party was last in power
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/09/keir-starmer-to-promise-new-powers-for-all-of-englands-towns-and-cities
Labour definitely seem to have more ideas than the Conservatives did last week though.
I welcome the ambition, and the ideas have a definite logic to them (which makes a pleasant change from recent years, and certainly from last week) but I'm not assuming it will be a success.
It is a farm on the M62 where the story is, don't know if true or not, the farmer refused to sell so they built the motorway around him.
A firsthand account of tragedy and heroism from the slaughter that left more than 900 Israelis dead
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/amir-tibon-how-his-family-survived-hamas-massacre/675596/
...But I’ll tell you something. In a way, the fact that they shot the mortars at our community before they broke through the border saved a lot of people’s lives, because it caused people to run into the safe room. And this safe room, if you lock it properly, is very hard to open from the outside. A lot of people were barricaded in those safe rooms for hours and sometimes an entire day. In a lot of cases, the terrorists tried to break in, and they couldn’t.
What happened in our case was that we were sitting there in the dark. A few minutes after we got in and we heard this gunfire, the electricity stopped. We had no food. We did have some water. And we’re telling our daughters, “You have to be quiet now. You have to be absolutely quiet. Not a word. You can’t cry. Can’t talk. It’s dangerous.” And my girls were absolute heroes. They waited silently in the dark for 10 hours, and they did not cry. They understood. ..
...successive Israeli governments, all of them led by Benjamin Netanyahu, invested billions of dollars—I think some of them actually from U.S. support—in constructing an underground wall to prevent Hamas from using those tunnels again. This was a major infrastructure project for the state of Israel. And that project allowed us to sleep at night, because you can deal with rockets falling over your head if you have a safe room in your house, but if terrorists are infiltrating underground and they can walk into your community, that’s a game changer. And so the reason we could live there, and that’s true for everyone, is because of this underground wall that Israel constructed. And in the morning hours of Saturday, October 7, when we heard the gunfire outside our window, we realized that this project is an utter and complete failure.
Israel invested so much in it, and what did the Hamas people do? They took a few tractors and SUVs, and they ran over the border fence. ..
Something needs to be done and more needs to be built in the places it is needed.
I see loads of developments in South Tyneside, North Tyneside and Durham. Places with barely growing or declining populations. I cannot see why. It is hardly likely we are blessed with councils up here who have any drive or determination to try to grow the local economy and therefore grow the population.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/i-will-never-leave-labour-but-my-new-membership-card-makes-me-uneasy/ar-AA1hVyIf?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=4fa854e6436e41a3a7010de953a28e81&ei=11
..They stop in a nearby community that is close to the border, but not as close as we are. And my father convinces a soldier who is standing there and looking for a way to help to come with him to Nahal Oz, to my kibbutz, in order to kill terrorists and save families. They drive toward the kibbutz, but along the way, they see a military force being ambushed by Hamas fighters. They get out of the car. My father is retired; he doesn’t have military-grade weapons. In Israel, unlike in America, citizens cannot buy AR-15s, and I’m glad for that. But my father has a pistol with him, and he and this other soldier join the soldiers who are fighting the Hamas cell, they help kill them, and now they’re very close to my kibbutz. They’re five minutes from the entrance to my kibbutz, but two of the soldiers are wounded. And again, my father has to turn around. He puts the wounded soldiers in his car with the help of that other soldier who joined him, and they go back to where my mother is.
My mom takes the wounded soldiers with her in their car to a hospital. My father sees another retired former general, Israel Ziv, who’s closer to 70 than 60. But Israel put on his uniform and came like a regular soldier down south to try to help. My father tells him, “Israel, I don’t have a car. My wife is taking the wounded soldiers to the hospital to save them. I need to get to Nahal Oz, where my family is barricaded. My granddaughters are there. Take me to Nahal Oz.”..
Foxy nailed it. Tory types moan that Labour has no authentic voice, then moan some more when they have someone who has.
There’s quite a lot of “business parks” as well. Quite a few people have commented that Chiswick Business Park is a rather nice environment - they put in a lot of work to make it so.
Compare it to the new flats being jammed between motorways and rail tracks.
Idiots. Forget the beheadings, rapes etc - this is the kind of behaviour that really gets people upset. XL Bullies. Afghan dog plane.
More generally, it's a planning term that's been around for decades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyfield_land
(nb "This article has multiple issues.")