Humza Yousaf? More like Humza Useless – politicalbetting.com
Humza Yousaf? More like Humza Useless – politicalbetting.com
We asked 1,000 Scots to give us one word to describe Humza Yousaf.#SNP23 pic.twitter.com/jvEYy6fHLR
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And the chance to stop such a plan has already failed - it was part of Rishi's 2021 budget and Truss killed it off... Chances are it will return...
“Sunak inherited a toxic and fractured party in which he was not the first preference for the job. He spent a large amount of the last 12 months not saying much and then suddenly woke up before conference and decided to become presidential.
“His conference speech was full of ‘I’ and ‘me’ not “‘we’ or ‘the party’. His wife did a First Lady impression by giving a speech and telling us how nice her hubby is. None of us particularly want nice, we would settle for competent -which he isn’t.”
It says senior Tory, not MP. Wonder if it's Lord Frost. Or Boris.
Since it is now on topic I will repeat the link to Wings over Scotland and his brilliant montage to the lyrics "nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all" https://wingsoverscotland.com/now-the-traffic-lights-change/
This is not in fairness Hamza's fault, it is what he inherited from Sturgeon, but he is bearing the cost of those years and years of delusion.
There used to be a time when we believed in the future, but those optimistic days are gone.
England v. South Africa in the cricket world cup at 9.30am
Merseyside derby at 12.30pm
Chelsea v Arsenal at 5.30pm
England v South Africa in the rugby world cup semi final at 8pm.
F1 Sprint Race at 11pm.
So that's 4 events I am heavily obsessed with and I might very grumpy if they all lose.
Just the right balance of civility, sympathy and rudeness.
https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/heads-deflated-after-dfe-funding-email-error
What baffles me is how Susan Acland-Hood is still in post.
Also is anyone watching the revived Big Brother. It was huge in 2004 when there was a 4 page BB supplement in the Sun every day. Even by 2010 though I think general interest had gone.
The discontinuance of X Factor caused a lot of debate at the time but was clearly the right move.
Some of these shows are allowed to persist for far too long.
I don't think it's anyone in the Cabinet - if I had to pick one it sounds like it would be Kemi Badenoch.
I'm still going with Frost I think, though if you read it in the style of Ann Widdecombe it also works.
Of course the 2 state solution is dead. There are not two states to do a deal. Israel has occupied and chopped up the West Bank - partly for justified security reasons, partly for religious nut job reasons. And Gaza is a terrorist enclave.
Is not the simple truth that the 2 state solution was never on because the Muslim crazies cannot sanction the Jewish state, and the Jewish crazies are happy to replicate terror with terror of their own.
The crank left repeat the end game: from the river to the sea. A one state solution- the creation for the first time of a Palestinian nation state where Israel now is. So park holier-than-thou we are the oppressed the Jew uniquely is Bad no that isn’t anti-Semitic cos the Jeremy wasn’t how dare you bullshit from the crank left. They don’t want 2 states, they want to remove Israel from existence.
Worse for Israel, remove them from the map is the policy of Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Hamas, Hesbollah, Islamic Jihad etc etc etc. the idea that Israel is the aggressor doesn’t stand up to logic or sanity.
Altrernative history:
FM Forbes gives 117th interview on how believing that gay marriage is a sin has no effect on her ability to govern, and that the SNP's dip in the polls is down to folk discriminating against her because of her religion.
FM Regan(lol) explaining why Alex Salmond was photographed entering the tradesman's entrance of Bute House on 14 occasions.
You might say “none of that is true” - but when you compare what we have here with what they have, it is true. It’s not good, but it’s not as bad as they get.
2 minutes in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk9iEEpLAvE
Don’t call a UK general election in November 2024: Rishi Sunak told to avoid poll clash with US
...
The insider said: “There are huge security and market implications if two Five Eyes countries are holding elections at once. It could potentially open up two countries to cyberwarfare and electoral manipulation from hostile states and if a security threat were to arise during a campaign it would leave western countries exposed.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/url-uk-general-election-us-presidential-security-risks-2024-7q8zstbth
Although if you read the whole thing, they also seem to be warning against a January election so it is probably just spin from someone who has bet on May, as the Labour Party is said to have done.
1 - As you say, Public Sector pensions have been heavily reformed. I have a family member working for the health regulators, who has been continually in a cleft stick between a Health Service pension scheme, and a Civil Servant pension scheme because UKHSA is not quite proper Health Service to some - the employer wants the staff on the cheapest one they can of course.
2 - The UK has been adjusting it's pension age since John Major's time (Pensions Act 1995), and we are now towards the higher end in Europe with a further rise from 66 to 67 in 2026-2028. Plus we have one of the stronger demographic profiles in Western Europe.
3 - The Triple Lock has added at most a small amount - when I calculated it I made it 5-6% a year over inflationary increases since 2010 or whenever it was. The inchoate political fury this generates is bizarre, as is the weight put on it.
There may be other appropriate reforms; they are not these imo.
I'd say that adjustments need to be on the revenue side more than the cost side - perhaps 80:20 or higher. We have have nearly 15 years of salami-slicing, and it is time to reverse ferret - which is why I hope Mr Starmer has some significant rebalancing proposals.
Derek Thompson
@DKThomp
·
18h
This is a really interesting and compelling interview, in that it treats Hamas seriously, as a legitimate political actor, one with agency and purposeful strategy, and asks the next question: What *was* the logical end goal of luridly killing so many Israeli civilians?
https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1715375403848843276
https://www.enisa.europa.eu/news/eu-elections-at-risk-with-rise-of-ai-enabled-information-manipulation
(I am neither of the above and usually disagree with them, though not always).
I had to ask Alexa what the date was, when I saw the word cloud.
But, worse, he actually is Useless. So it sticks.
We could have had today
De Kock c Wood b Willey
On the other hand, if they are set for a hammering anyway, which they appear to be, would January 2025 really be that much worse than October 2024 in terms of outcome?
If people have made up their minds about the government needing to be changed, it's probably only the difference of a handful of seats.
Oh well, 14 years 7 months is a good run by any measure.
We have been much closer to a working 2-state solution in the past. I don’t see the evidence that is was “never on”. Whether it is feasible now after years of continued Israeli settlements in the West Bank is a harder question.
Armed with blunt kiwi fruit.
This will -
1) probably reduce deaths among valuable humans
2) improve U.K. education
What’s not to like?
On 3, if its so bizarre and minimal, supporters of the triple lock will be quite happy to give up such a trivial benefit to do their bit.
USA. A January 2025 election would have two features; it runs alongside the 20 January inauguration of the next POTUS. And there is about a 40% chance that this will be Trump. What the effects of this will be are known unknowns.
There are no good times for Rishi which get him to 2 years as PM.
Which they are not, unless he was referring to his term as PM.
I cannot really recall how either the Farron or Forbes examples came up in the first place, but it seems unlikely to have been by their choice given the storm they will have known it would cause, so your question is fair re those with other beliefs (I think there was some attempt to try it on with Yousaf as well, but IIRC it went nowhere).
Same would be true for a more strict Muslim than Yousaf is I expect
'The National Infrastructure Commission advised this week, after an exhaustive investigation of the technology, that hydrogen was not suitable for heating homes. The report was unambiguous: “The Commission’s analysis demonstrates that there is no public policy case for hydrogen to be used to heat individual buildings. It should be ruled out as an option to enable an exclusive focus on switching to electrified heat.”
However, the government indicated to the Guardian that it would continue to push hydrogen for home heating, and the body that represents most of the heating industry also vowed to continue to pursue it.'
Given how long it took us to find a reliable worker to mend a persistent gas leak in our house discovered after we bought it, no thanks, no hydrogen for me!
This is interesting re unexpected tax on state pensions, which don't have PAYE deducted because HMG is so useless. And for the sneakily worded denial by HMG. The problem is, as the article makes clear, that a lot of state pensions are above the basic flat rate pension on account of SERPS etc.
If only we'd learnt the lessons.....
But no.
We continue to put the interests of institutions above those they are meant to serve and treat the victims with callousness and indifference. See the Post Office, Grenfell, blood contamination, Hillsborough etc.,
I wrote about it here - https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/the-price-of-indifference/. It is what I am proudest of writing. It personal because that lack of human empathy and indifference is what so often goes wrong - not just in the events leading up to the tragedy - but in the investigations afterwards and in how we treat those affected. Empathy and emotional intelligence are key to any good investigation and to trying to ensure that we try to avoid the same problems recurring. They are so often lacking, indeed regarded as inessential. And it is why the same problems happen over and over and over again.
Aberfan and its aftermath taught us that.
If you have time please read.
Palestinians have been killed and forced from their homes by Israeli settlers often using arms provided by the government, many villages have been emptied as Palestinians flee .
Even worse Israeli military often just look on and fail to intervene .
It's related to what I've seen referred to as the 'reform fairy' as a counterpart to the magic money tree of solutions - the idea vague, unspecified, or limited 'reform' will magically resolve some pretty massive issues.
Smaller, simple reforms can achieve a lot and can be done. But like with cutting spending it doesn't matter all that much if you cut 50% of the Justice budget if you are not touching Health and Welfare at all. If you want to make big savings, the target must be big.
If a viable state couldn’t be founded then, I can’t see how it would be founded now. And again, it is difficult to do so when the elected government is pledged to the destruction of the other state, a position shared by surrounding countries like Iran.
We can’t just give the Israeli governments permission do what they like - some of their acts have been wilfully criminal. But I can understand their position better when most of their neighbours and the counterparty in a 2 state negotiation are pledged to their destruction
Along with a tripling of the production capacity of Caesar self-propelled howitzers, the delivery time was reduced from 30 to 15 months.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1715571609988440442
2. Legally there is no reason to call an early election which you’re going to lose badly
3. The US election and civil war offer exactly the kind of black swan Hail Mary event they need to avoid demolition
Think about it. Monday 22nd January. PM appears in Downing Street. Crest on the lectern. Announcing that due to the terrible events in the US over the weekend and the massive cyber attacks on the US, UK and others, he has been advised by the security services that Thursdays General Election is not safe to be held. Campaigning will be suspended and parliament recalled. It is not possible to name a new date. An order in council will be passed to extend the life of the current parliament.
On fiscal drag, BTW, this means that millions of FT workers only on minimum wage are paying thousands in IT/NI, which is nuts.
That can only be explained by deep-rooted anti-semitism among those protestors.
The “Tariff for Torture” issued by the Archbishopric of Cologne in 1757 setting out levels of remuneration for various methods of torture and execution.
And combinations thereof.
https://twitter.com/curiouswavefn/status/1715531816223002653
At least HS2 had an economic value, misconceived whether it was or not.
My point is it's more a nickname (like he'd maybe have got at school, kids being what they are) than a qualitative assessment of the man himself. Nicknames can stick. Mine was Chimp. Originally due to prowess at climbing things but after a while most of the people calling me it didn't know that. Same going on here (to some extent) with the Scottish First Minister. Lots of the people calling him useless actually probably like him or don't have an opinion either way.
A thought experiment to prove my point: Imagine his name was Humza Robinson. One can't say what word would dominate his word cloud then but no way would it be 'useless'. QED.
Bill Clinton seems to have had the optimum governing period and Tony Blair the optimum time to become PM.
On the minimum wage: quite so.
A Trump victory in November 2024 might cause enough chaos to give him an excuse.
Look at the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign statement when Hamas brought medieval slaughter into Israle. No condemnation of beheading babies, no no, its the Jew's fault, and that the just thing to do is to stand in solidarity with the Hamas beheaders. https://palestinecampaign.org/psc-statement-on-escalation-of-violence/
If that isn't anti-semitism, what is?
The whole tax credits regime, is of course a very expensive mess that subsidizes poorly-paying employers. It’s the sort fo scheme that needs to be very carefully looked at in the context of government saving the serious money that’s required.