The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Governing by laying traps for your opponents is such a ludicrously stupid tactic.
If you bring good governance, chances are your opponents will in time create their own messes. Constantly setting traps is generally obvious and makes you look mendacious and like you are using government as your plaything.
Although this government seem to be obsessed with the tactic more than any I’ve ever seen, Brown was another PM who had tendencies towards this, and similarly it didn’t work.
Won’t work now either.
I don’t think there’s any way back for them.
The kings speech was somewhat uninspired. This is a govt out of ideas
The King was Rishi's second choice. He wanted Elon Musk to deliver the speech.
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Your analysis of the problems, and their order of importance, is rather lacking.
Susan Hall was elected because CCHQ in their wisdom nixed two good candidates in favour of a 'leadership-friendly moderniser' who was then brought down by groping allegations.
Braverman is about results. Like Truss, she's happy to be unpopular (and when was the last popular Home Sec.?) and let the results speak for themselves. She is definitely acting up and challenging Sunak to sack her, which lends a somewhat negative impression of her thinking on how likely we are to stop the boats.
This brings us to the only 'real' problem here - that this Government has no policies, except bad ones. They don't want to grow the economy; they don't want to rationalise the State; they don't want to improve the delivery of public services; they don't want to get more houses built - not in a serious and determined fashion anyway.
So we come back to the central question - based on their record and their ideas for governing Britain in the mid to late 2020s, why would anyone want to vote Conservative at the next election?
Oldies have done very well.
And for young northerners who want to learn a trade rather than keep studying then things have never been better.
Yes and many continue to vote Conservative but the polls suggest there's been a healthy swing to Labour even among that core demographic.
The "young northerners" may still come out and support but will they be enough? Will they even bother?
Of course not. We all know the Tories are toast of the distinctly carbonic variety. But there is an answer if you want to look for it. The next government is going to ascend new levels of despair and demoralisation, as we all discover that the Tories were not evil, purely pragmatic about how much money was left and how far we were living beyond our means.
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Your analysis of the problems, and their order of importance, is rather lacking.
Susan Hall was elected because CCHQ in their wisdom nixed two good candidates in favour of a 'leadership-friendly moderniser' who was then brought down by groping allegations.
Braverman is about results. Like Truss, she's happy to be unpopular (and when was the last popular Home Sec.?) and let the results speak for themselves. She is definitely acting up and challenging Sunak to sack her, which lends a somewhat negative impression of her thinking on how likely we are to stop the boats.
This brings us to the only 'real' problem here - that this Government has no policies, except bad ones. They don't want to grow the economy; they don't want to rationalise the State; they don't want to improve the delivery of public services; they don't want to get more houses built - not in a serious and determined fashion anyway.
So we come back to the central question - based on their record and their ideas for governing Britain in the mid to late 2020s, why would anyone want to vote Conservative at the next election?
Oldies have done very well.
And for young northerners who want to learn a trade rather than keep studying then things have never been better.
Yes and many continue to vote Conservative but the polls suggest there's been a healthy swing to Labour even among that core demographic.
The "young northerners" may still come out and support but will they be enough? Will they even bother?
The young northerners aren't likely to vote and nor are they likely to know how fortunate they are compared to either previous generations or compared to young southerners who go on to university.
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Your analysis of the problems, and their order of importance, is rather lacking.
Susan Hall was elected because CCHQ in their wisdom nixed two good candidates in favour of a 'leadership-friendly moderniser' who was then brought down by groping allegations.
Braverman is about results. Like Truss, she's happy to be unpopular (and when was the last popular Home Sec.?) and let the results speak for themselves. She is definitely acting up and challenging Sunak to sack her, which lends a somewhat negative impression of her thinking on how likely we are to stop the boats.
This brings us to the only 'real' problem here - that this Government has no policies, except bad ones. They don't want to grow the economy; they don't want to rationalise the State; they don't want to improve the delivery of public services; they don't want to get more houses built - not in a serious and determined fashion anyway.
So we come back to the central question - based on their record and their ideas for governing Britain in the mid to late 2020s, why would anyone want to vote Conservative at the next election?
Oldies have done very well.
And for young northerners who want to learn a trade rather than keep studying then things have never been better.
Yes and many continue to vote Conservative but the polls suggest there's been a healthy swing to Labour even among that core demographic.
The "young northerners" may still come out and support but will they be enough? Will they even bother?
Swing?
Don't you mean differential turnout patterns now favouring Labour?
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Your analysis of the problems, and their order of importance, is rather lacking.
Susan Hall was elected because CCHQ in their wisdom nixed two good candidates in favour of a 'leadership-friendly moderniser' who was then brought down by groping allegations.
Braverman is about results. Like Truss, she's happy to be unpopular (and when was the last popular Home Sec.?) and let the results speak for themselves. She is definitely acting up and challenging Sunak to sack her, which lends a somewhat negative impression of her thinking on how likely we are to stop the boats.
This brings us to the only 'real' problem here - that this Government has no policies, except bad ones. They don't want to grow the economy; they don't want to rationalise the State; they don't want to improve the delivery of public services; they don't want to get more houses built - not in a serious and determined fashion anyway.
So we come back to the central question - based on their record and their ideas for governing Britain in the mid to late 2020s, why would anyone want to vote Conservative at the next election?
No reason currently. But it's never too late to Govern well, and stand on that record and the promise of more. Labour has a set of dead end policies that will be hugely costly and deeply unpopular. Sunak seems quite happy to keep the seat warm - the UK public deserves two parties competing to offer a winning prospectus to improve their lives, not conspiring to impose policies that erode standards of living further.
We disagree (to say the least) on what "to govern well" might mean... but yes. If the main point of a King's Speech is to lay traps for the other lot, that's nature's way of telling you that your time in government should be over. The door is over there, try not to let it slam on the way out.
I am not sure that we really do. I approve of cautious, conciliatory government that works on the basis of forming a wide coalition of support for the way forward as I am sure that you do, but there has to be a steely determination behind that to pursue the national interest. I also don't think we should do silly flounces and be deliberately confrontational with our neighbours and allies, but again, I think that there must be a foundation of firmness so that negotiating partners respect and understand the UK's position. On economic policies we perhaps have the biggest differences, but surely everyone is slowly waking up to the idea that if we want to have first rate services, we need to ensure that the productive economy that funds them stays healthy and robust. Even Starmer criticised Sunak's high tax low growth strategy today (though I'm not convinced he'd be any different).
"I’m delighted to see the Holocaust Memorial Bill featuring in today’s #KingsSpeech. The Bill will enable the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre to be built in Victoria Tower Gardens in London, next to Parliament and at the very heart of our democracy.
I first set up the Holocaust Commission in 2014 to answer Britain's need for a permanent memorial and learning centre on what is the darkest chapter in human history. At a time when the scourge of antisemitism, prejudice and intolerance are very sadly on the rise, the need for this national memorial has never been more vital. Today’s announcement takes us a step closer to making this a reality and fulfilling the promise I made almost a decade ago."
Victoria Gardens are beautiful. Built id somewhere else, if you need it. Hampstead Heath? Highgate? Near the Jewish heart of North London? Not here. And not by ramming it past the very many people who are sympathetic to the cause, but dispute the need for THIS location
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
Oh do give over. He went back and said SORRY
Do you not have a sense of humour?
Around about that time I rented a house from a Mr S Hussain. One night their were two messages left on the phone. The first a rant about Iraq, the twin towers etc. The second, a while later, apologising and saying that he realised I wasn’t THE Saddam Hussain… I found it amusing.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
Oh do give over. He went back and said SORRY
Do you not have a sense of humour?
Around about that time I rented a house from a Mr S Hussain. One night their were two messages left on the phone. The first a rant about Iraq, the twin towers etc. The second, a while later, apologising and saying that he realised I wasn’t THE Saddam Hussain… I found it amusing.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Your analysis of the problems, and their order of importance, is rather lacking.
Susan Hall was elected because CCHQ in their wisdom nixed two good candidates in favour of a 'leadership-friendly moderniser' who was then brought down by groping allegations.
Braverman is about results. Like Truss, she's happy to be unpopular (and when was the last popular Home Sec.?) and let the results speak for themselves. She is definitely acting up and challenging Sunak to sack her, which lends a somewhat negative impression of her thinking on how likely we are to stop the boats.
This brings us to the only 'real' problem here - that this Government has no policies, except bad ones. They don't want to grow the economy; they don't want to rationalise the State; they don't want to improve the delivery of public services; they don't want to get more houses built - not in a serious and determined fashion anyway.
So we come back to the central question - based on their record and their ideas for governing Britain in the mid to late 2020s, why would anyone want to vote Conservative at the next election?
No reason currently. But it's never too late to Govern well, and stand on that record and the promise of more. Labour has a set of dead end policies that will be hugely costly and deeply unpopular. Sunak seems quite happy to keep the seat warm - the UK public deserves two parties competing to offer a winning prospectus to improve their lives, not conspiring to impose policies that erode standards of living further.
We disagree (to say the least) on what "to govern well" might mean... but yes. If the main point of a King's Speech is to lay traps for the other lot, that's nature's way of telling you that your time in government should be over. The door is over there, try not to let it slam on the way out.
Whatever governing well means, it doesn't mean having 5 big points by which you wish to be judged, which on the whole involve beginning to put right several things which we expect government not to have put wrong in the first place.
It's time for a change, and unless that change were to look like Trump, Jezza, Putin or Hamas I think it will happen. It will.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
I really hope that Saville died racked with remorse and guilt, feeling horribly miserable. Somehow, whatever Steve Coogan made of it, I rather doubt he did. Some people are complete and absolute monsters and seem ok with that.
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Your analysis of the problems, and their order of importance, is rather lacking.
Susan Hall was elected because CCHQ in their wisdom nixed two good candidates in favour of a 'leadership-friendly moderniser' who was then brought down by groping allegations.
Braverman is about results. Like Truss, she's happy to be unpopular (and when was the last popular Home Sec.?) and let the results speak for themselves. She is definitely acting up and challenging Sunak to sack her, which lends a somewhat negative impression of her thinking on how likely we are to stop the boats.
This brings us to the only 'real' problem here - that this Government has no policies, except bad ones. They don't want to grow the economy; they don't want to rationalise the State; they don't want to improve the delivery of public services; they don't want to get more houses built - not in a serious and determined fashion anyway.
So we come back to the central question - based on their record and their ideas for governing Britain in the mid to late 2020s, why would anyone want to vote Conservative at the next election?
Oldies have done very well.
And for young northerners who want to learn a trade rather than keep studying then things have never been better.
Yes and many continue to vote Conservative but the polls suggest there's been a healthy swing to Labour even among that core demographic.
The "young northerners" may still come out and support but will they be enough? Will they even bother?
Of course not. We all know the Tories are toast of the distinctly carbonic variety. But there is an answer if you want to look for it. The next government is going to ascend new levels of despair and demoralisation, as we all discover that the Tories were not evil, purely pragmatic about how much money was left and how far we were living beyond our means.
I’ve noticed a new trend in right of centre posting in the last couple of weeks: essentially, yes Labour will win the next election but it’ll be an almighty disaster and soon they will be even less popular than the last lot.
I suppose this is a bit like those stages of grief, and we’ve got to the bargaining stage. Or perhaps the stage of climate change scepticism that we’re at currently, which is “yes the world is warming and yes it’s caused by humans, but mitigation is too costly”.
You may all be right but I’m not sure. It assumes the current government is as competent as anyone could be, that it’s not out of ideas and stale, and that a bit of new blood can’t raise our national performance and wellbeing even allowing for the financial constraints we’re under.
Countries have recovered and prospered from much worse starting points. And of course others have just carried on getting worse. But nothing’s inevitable.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
Hypothetical scenario.
Twatty friend of X enraged by tons of dead Gazan kids staggers round to tiny local synagogue and paints a Hamas flag and a swastika on it. Next day regretfully marker pens sorry upon it.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
I really hope that Saville died racked with remorse and guilt, feeling horribly miserable. Somehow, whatever Steve Coogan made of it, I rather doubt he did. Some people are complete and absolute monsters and seem ok with that.
More likely that Savile was a psychopath, unable to feel happiness.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
Hypothetical scenario.
Twatty friend of X enraged by tons of dead Gazan kids staggers round to tiny local synagogue and paints a Hamas flag and a swastika on it. Next day regretfully marker pens sorry upon it.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Your analysis of the problems, and their order of importance, is rather lacking.
Susan Hall was elected because CCHQ in their wisdom nixed two good candidates in favour of a 'leadership-friendly moderniser' who was then brought down by groping allegations.
Braverman is about results. Like Truss, she's happy to be unpopular (and when was the last popular Home Sec.?) and let the results speak for themselves. She is definitely acting up and challenging Sunak to sack her, which lends a somewhat negative impression of her thinking on how likely we are to stop the boats.
This brings us to the only 'real' problem here - that this Government has no policies, except bad ones. They don't want to grow the economy; they don't want to rationalise the State; they don't want to improve the delivery of public services; they don't want to get more houses built - not in a serious and determined fashion anyway.
So we come back to the central question - based on their record and their ideas for governing Britain in the mid to late 2020s, why would anyone want to vote Conservative at the next election?
Oldies have done very well.
And for young northerners who want to learn a trade rather than keep studying then things have never been better.
Yes and many continue to vote Conservative but the polls suggest there's been a healthy swing to Labour even among that core demographic.
The "young northerners" may still come out and support but will they be enough? Will they even bother?
Of course not. We all know the Tories are toast of the distinctly carbonic variety. But there is an answer if you want to look for it. The next government is going to ascend new levels of despair and demoralisation, as we all discover that the Tories were not evil, purely pragmatic about how much money was left and how far we were living beyond our means.
I’ve noticed a new trend in right of centre posting in the last couple of weeks: essentially, yes Labour will win the next election but it’ll be an almighty disaster and soon they will be even less popular than the last lot.
I suppose this is a bit like those stages of grief, and we’ve got to the bargaining stage. Or perhaps the stage of climate change scepticism that we’re at currently, which is “yes the world is warming and yes it’s caused by humans, but mitigation is too costly”.
You may all be right but I’m not sure. It assumes the current government is as competent as anyone could be, that it’s not out of ideas and stale, and that a bit of new blood can’t raise our national performance and wellbeing even allowing for the financial constraints we’re under.
Countries have recovered and prospered from much worse starting points. And of course others have just carried on getting worse. But nothing’s inevitable.
I genuinely and sincerely hope you are right. But so much of what is wrong with this country is not the consequences of the last 13 years or even the last 26 years. We have been deluding ourselves about what we are entitled to for a long, long time under governments of all stripes.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
I really hope that Saville died racked with remorse and guilt, feeling horribly miserable. Somehow, whatever Steve Coogan made of it, I rather doubt he did. Some people are complete and absolute monsters and seem ok with that.
More likely that Savile was a psychopath, unable to feel happiness.
I really hope so. The bastard did not deserve any.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
I really hope that Saville died racked with remorse and guilt, feeling horribly miserable. Somehow, whatever Steve Coogan made of it, I rather doubt he did. Some people are complete and absolute monsters and seem ok with that.
More likely that Savile was a psychopath, unable to feel happiness.
In the Louis Theroux documentary he came across as deeply troubled, angry, obsessed with his late mother, and highly manipulative. Not happy but also never truly opened up to Theroux. Classic narcissist.
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Your analysis of the problems, and their order of importance, is rather lacking.
Susan Hall was elected because CCHQ in their wisdom nixed two good candidates in favour of a 'leadership-friendly moderniser' who was then brought down by groping allegations.
Braverman is about results. Like Truss, she's happy to be unpopular (and when was the last popular Home Sec.?) and let the results speak for themselves. She is definitely acting up and challenging Sunak to sack her, which lends a somewhat negative impression of her thinking on how likely we are to stop the boats.
This brings us to the only 'real' problem here - that this Government has no policies, except bad ones. They don't want to grow the economy; they don't want to rationalise the State; they don't want to improve the delivery of public services; they don't want to get more houses built - not in a serious and determined fashion anyway.
So we come back to the central question - based on their record and their ideas for governing Britain in the mid to late 2020s, why would anyone want to vote Conservative at the next election?
Oldies have done very well.
And for young northerners who want to learn a trade rather than keep studying then things have never been better.
Yes and many continue to vote Conservative but the polls suggest there's been a healthy swing to Labour even among that core demographic.
The "young northerners" may still come out and support but will they be enough? Will they even bother?
Of course not. We all know the Tories are toast of the distinctly carbonic variety. But there is an answer if you want to look for it. The next government is going to ascend new levels of despair and demoralisation, as we all discover that the Tories were not evil, purely pragmatic about how much money was left and how far we were living beyond our means.
I’ve noticed a new trend in right of centre posting in the last couple of weeks: essentially, yes Labour will win the next election but it’ll be an almighty disaster and soon they will be even less popular than the last lot.
I suppose this is a bit like those stages of grief, and we’ve got to the bargaining stage. Or perhaps the stage of climate change scepticism that we’re at currently, which is “yes the world is warming and yes it’s caused by humans, but mitigation is too costly”.
You may all be right but I’m not sure. It assumes the current government is as competent as anyone could be, that it’s not out of ideas and stale, and that a bit of new blood can’t raise our national performance and wellbeing even allowing for the financial constraints we’re under.
Countries have recovered and prospered from much worse starting points. And of course others have just carried on getting worse. But nothing’s inevitable.
I genuinely and sincerely hope you are right. But so much of what is wrong with this country is not the consequences of the last 13 years or even the last 26 years. We have been deluding ourselves about what we are entitled to for a long, long time under governments of all stripes.
My theory is that it all started going wrong when the trade balance stopped being reported by the media.
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Your analysis of the problems, and their order of importance, is rather lacking.
Susan Hall was elected because CCHQ in their wisdom nixed two good candidates in favour of a 'leadership-friendly moderniser' who was then brought down by groping allegations.
Braverman is about results. Like Truss, she's happy to be unpopular (and when was the last popular Home Sec.?) and let the results speak for themselves. She is definitely acting up and challenging Sunak to sack her, which lends a somewhat negative impression of her thinking on how likely we are to stop the boats.
This brings us to the only 'real' problem here - that this Government has no policies, except bad ones. They don't want to grow the economy; they don't want to rationalise the State; they don't want to improve the delivery of public services; they don't want to get more houses built - not in a serious and determined fashion anyway.
So we come back to the central question - based on their record and their ideas for governing Britain in the mid to late 2020s, why would anyone want to vote Conservative at the next election?
Oldies have done very well.
And for young northerners who want to learn a trade rather than keep studying then things have never been better.
Yes and many continue to vote Conservative but the polls suggest there's been a healthy swing to Labour even among that core demographic.
The "young northerners" may still come out and support but will they be enough? Will they even bother?
Of course not. We all know the Tories are toast of the distinctly carbonic variety. But there is an answer if you want to look for it. The next government is going to ascend new levels of despair and demoralisation, as we all discover that the Tories were not evil, purely pragmatic about how much money was left and how far we were living beyond our means.
I’ve noticed a new trend in right of centre posting in the last couple of weeks: essentially, yes Labour will win the next election but it’ll be an almighty disaster and soon they will be even less popular than the last lot.
I suppose this is a bit like those stages of grief, and we’ve got to the bargaining stage. Or perhaps the stage of climate change scepticism that we’re at currently, which is “yes the world is warming and yes it’s caused by humans, but mitigation is too costly”.
You may all be right but I’m not sure. It assumes the current government is as competent as anyone could be, that it’s not out of ideas and stale, and that a bit of new blood can’t raise our national performance and wellbeing even allowing for the financial constraints we’re under.
Countries have recovered and prospered from much worse starting points. And of course others have just carried on getting worse. But nothing’s inevitable.
There is surely an element of griefstruck bargaining, however, there is also an element of evidence based prediction
Look at the USA. Biden has actually done pretty well, on several metrics - not least economic - after the horror show of Trump
And yet voters are ignoring that, and heading back towards Trump
And I really doubt Starmer will be able to conjure up the growth performance and economic stimulation of Bidenomics
The West, in toto, is in choppy waters, with the weird crosswinds of Wokeism and the Culture Wars making everything more complex
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
I expect in face to face company you’d all get on very well with each other. After all everyone on here has an interest in politics in common, for a start.
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Your analysis of the problems, and their order of importance, is rather lacking.
Susan Hall was elected because CCHQ in their wisdom nixed two good candidates in favour of a 'leadership-friendly moderniser' who was then brought down by groping allegations.
Braverman is about results. Like Truss, she's happy to be unpopular (and when was the last popular Home Sec.?) and let the results speak for themselves. She is definitely acting up and challenging Sunak to sack her, which lends a somewhat negative impression of her thinking on how likely we are to stop the boats.
This brings us to the only 'real' problem here - that this Government has no policies, except bad ones. They don't want to grow the economy; they don't want to rationalise the State; they don't want to improve the delivery of public services; they don't want to get more houses built - not in a serious and determined fashion anyway.
So we come back to the central question - based on their record and their ideas for governing Britain in the mid to late 2020s, why would anyone want to vote Conservative at the next election?
Oldies have done very well.
And for young northerners who want to learn a trade rather than keep studying then things have never been better.
Yes and many continue to vote Conservative but the polls suggest there's been a healthy swing to Labour even among that core demographic.
The "young northerners" may still come out and support but will they be enough? Will they even bother?
Of course not. We all know the Tories are toast of the distinctly carbonic variety. But there is an answer if you want to look for it. The next government is going to ascend new levels of despair and demoralisation, as we all discover that the Tories were not evil, purely pragmatic about how much money was left and how far we were living beyond our means.
I’ve noticed a new trend in right of centre posting in the last couple of weeks: essentially, yes Labour will win the next election but it’ll be an almighty disaster and soon they will be even less popular than the last lot.
I suppose this is a bit like those stages of grief, and we’ve got to the bargaining stage. Or perhaps the stage of climate change scepticism that we’re at currently, which is “yes the world is warming and yes it’s caused by humans, but mitigation is too costly”.
You may all be right but I’m not sure. It assumes the current government is as competent as anyone could be, that it’s not out of ideas and stale, and that a bit of new blood can’t raise our national performance and wellbeing even allowing for the financial constraints we’re under.
Countries have recovered and prospered from much worse starting points. And of course others have just carried on getting worse. But nothing’s inevitable.
I genuinely and sincerely hope you are right. But so much of what is wrong with this country is not the consequences of the last 13 years or even the last 26 years. We have been deluding ourselves about what we are entitled to for a long, long time under governments of all stripes.
My theory is that it all started going wrong when the trade balance stopped being reported by the media.
YES, oh yes. Gordon Brown told us it did not matter in a modern, open economy. He was catastrophically wrong. But so many of his successors have failed to recognise the consequences of that error and its implications for the economic choices we have left.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
Let's see some evidence then. I think him more full of bullshit than even credulous you.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
I expect in face to face company you’d all get on very well with each other. After all everyone on here has an interest in politics in common, for a start.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
Hypothetical scenario.
Twatty friend of X enraged by tons of dead Gazan kids staggers round to tiny local synagogue and paints a Hamas flag and a swastika on it. Next day regretfully marker pens sorry upon it.
Cue gales of fine old British laughter.
Yes, I would laugh at that. Because the humour rebounds ENTIRELY on the hapless remorseful idiot that did the graffito, that is the point of it. That is why it is funny
The fact you cannot see this says so much about the Left. You are all so fucking dreary and pious
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Your analysis of the problems, and their order of importance, is rather lacking.
Susan Hall was elected because CCHQ in their wisdom nixed two good candidates in favour of a 'leadership-friendly moderniser' who was then brought down by groping allegations.
Braverman is about results. Like Truss, she's happy to be unpopular (and when was the last popular Home Sec.?) and let the results speak for themselves. She is definitely acting up and challenging Sunak to sack her, which lends a somewhat negative impression of her thinking on how likely we are to stop the boats.
This brings us to the only 'real' problem here - that this Government has no policies, except bad ones. They don't want to grow the economy; they don't want to rationalise the State; they don't want to improve the delivery of public services; they don't want to get more houses built - not in a serious and determined fashion anyway.
So we come back to the central question - based on their record and their ideas for governing Britain in the mid to late 2020s, why would anyone want to vote Conservative at the next election?
Oldies have done very well.
And for young northerners who want to learn a trade rather than keep studying then things have never been better.
Yes and many continue to vote Conservative but the polls suggest there's been a healthy swing to Labour even among that core demographic.
The "young northerners" may still come out and support but will they be enough? Will they even bother?
Of course not. We all know the Tories are toast of the distinctly carbonic variety. But there is an answer if you want to look for it. The next government is going to ascend new levels of despair and demoralisation, as we all discover that the Tories were not evil, purely pragmatic about how much money was left and how far we were living beyond our means.
I’ve noticed a new trend in right of centre posting in the last couple of weeks: essentially, yes Labour will win the next election but it’ll be an almighty disaster and soon they will be even less popular than the last lot.
I suppose this is a bit like those stages of grief, and we’ve got to the bargaining stage. Or perhaps the stage of climate change scepticism that we’re at currently, which is “yes the world is warming and yes it’s caused by humans, but mitigation is too costly”.
You may all be right but I’m not sure. It assumes the current government is as competent as anyone could be, that it’s not out of ideas and stale, and that a bit of new blood can’t raise our national performance and wellbeing even allowing for the financial constraints we’re under.
Countries have recovered and prospered from much worse starting points. And of course others have just carried on getting worse. But nothing’s inevitable.
There is surely an element of griefstruck bargaining, however, there is also an element of evidence based prediction
Look at the USA. Biden has actually done pretty well, on several metrics - not least economic - after the horror show of Trump
And yet voters are ignoring that, and heading back towards Trump
And I really doubt Starmer will be able to conjure up the growth performance and economic stimulation of Bidenomics
The West, in toto, is in choppy waters, with the weird crosswinds of Wokeism and the Culture Wars making everything more complex
Add in effects of globalisation and AI and quite a few groups are going to be economically shafted.
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Probably a reaction to compulsory poppy fascism.
Definitely noticed a huge decline in people wearing them and indeed people selling them. It does appear that poppy fascism may have backfired: there was a period not too long ago where newsreaders/poilticians/anyone on the telly were lambasted by an angry twitter mob if their failed to wear a poppy (which is easily done by accident – the sodding things just fall off).
Or you change jackets. I buy 2-3 of these buggers a year.
I did wonder if there might be a business opportunity for a lapel badge saying 'my poppy is on my Barbour'.
Alternatively, "I bought a poppy but it fell off".
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
I expect in face to face company you’d all get on very well with each other. After all everyone on here has an interest in politics in common, for a start.
I expect not.
No, absolutely not
A fat Woke worthy boring semi-retired Lib Dem voting evangelical GP from Leicester? Er, No. NOPE. Noooooo
And @Foxy is right to swerve me. We would despise each other. I'd die of boredom first, tho, before he died of being offended
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
Hypothetical scenario.
Twatty friend of X enraged by tons of dead Gazan kids staggers round to tiny local synagogue and paints a Hamas flag and a swastika on it. Next day regretfully marker pens sorry upon it.
Cue gales of fine old British laughter.
Yes, I would laugh at that. Because the humour rebounds ENTIRELY on the hapless remorseful idiot that did the graffito, that is the point of it. That is why it is funny
The fact you cannot see this says so much about the Left. You are all so fucking dreary and pious
You’d have inverted your penis with outrage so much after the first graffiti (no doubt after seeing it on twiXtter) that you’d have been incapable of laughter for quite a long time.
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Governing by laying traps for your opponents is such a ludicrously stupid tactic.
If you bring good governance, chances are your opponents will in time create their own messes. Constantly setting traps is generally obvious and makes you look mendacious and like you are using government as your plaything.
Although this government seem to be obsessed with the tactic more than any I’ve ever seen, Brown was another PM who had tendencies towards this, and similarly it didn’t work.
Won’t work now either.
I don’t think there’s any way back for them.
The kings speech was somewhat uninspired. This is a govt out of ideas
The King was Rishi's second choice. He wanted Elon Musk to deliver the speech.
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Probably a reaction to compulsory poppy fascism.
Definitely noticed a huge decline in people wearing them and indeed people selling them. It does appear that poppy fascism may have backfired: there was a period not too long ago where newsreaders/poilticians/anyone on the telly were lambasted by an angry twitter mob if their failed to wear a poppy (which is easily done by accident – the sodding things just fall off).
Or you change jackets. I buy 2-3 of these buggers a year.
I did wonder if there might be a business opportunity for a lapel badge saying 'my poppy is on my Barbour'.
Alternatively, "I bought a poppy but it fell off".
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
Let's see some evidence then. I think him more full of bullshit than even credulous you.
So on the one hand you think it happened and it says "a lot about me that these are my friends" and on the other it didn't happen and you want proof that it did?
High inflation means it is almost certainly coming down as a percentage of GDP
According to the ONS Net debt as a % GDP was 2.1pps up year on year from last September in the latest figures.
We are still borrowing frightening sums of money. We have not filled the hole that financial services left in our accounts in 2008. We made some progress but then got set back by the costs of self indulgent nonsense during Covid and then that f****** idiot that the BBC kept promoting about how it was the government's responsibility to pay our gas bills. Now we are almost back where we started. Except that bit poorer. It's disappointing.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
I expect in face to face company you’d all get on very well with each other. After all everyone on here has an interest in politics in common, for a start.
I expect not.
We had Louis Theroux in our office today being interviewed for the staff. A man whose career has been built on spending time with people with views and belief systems anathema to most of us.
He talked about the fact that even in some of the craziest or darkest places - cults, far right groups, gangsters etc - it was possible to make a human connection. In real life - not online forums - we all routinely get on with, befriend, have drinks with, occasionally get romantically attached to, people whose political or religious views we find unfathomable or even reprehensible.
So I honestly doubt that down the pub you’d all be shouting and calling each other wankers. Even Malc and Nigel.
High inflation means it is almost certainly coming down as a percentage of GDP
Sunak is more careful with his language on debt when speaking in the House of Commons - he said today it is ‘set to fall’ instead of ‘falling’. He’s likely wary of having to correct the record if he repeated the ‘falling’ line in Parliament.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
Let's see some evidence then. I think him more full of bullshit than even credulous you.
So on the one hand you think it happened and it says "a lot about me that these are my friends" and on the other it didn't happen and you want proof that it did?
Get tae fuck, you sad sack o shite
Yeah, I didn't think you could substantiate the tale.
David Davis: Removing warrant requirement is 'fundamental mistake'
David Davis has argued the Government will make a “fundamental mistake” if it goes ahead with plans to let the police search properties without a court warrant.
The former Brexit secretary, a long-standing campaigner for civil rights, said the move would take away a “fundamental foundation stone… of free British society”.
He continued: “It’s there with jury trials and it’s there with the presumption of innocence.
“The right not to have the state kick your door down and come search your house with judicial approval is a massively important British value. The judicial control of the police is vital and must be preserved.”
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Probably a reaction to compulsory poppy fascism.
Definitely noticed a huge decline in people wearing them and indeed people selling them. It does appear that poppy fascism may have backfired: there was a period not too long ago where newsreaders/poilticians/anyone on the telly were lambasted by an angry twitter mob if their failed to wear a poppy (which is easily done by accident – the sodding things just fall off).
Or you change jackets. I buy 2-3 of these buggers a year.
I did wonder if there might be a business opportunity for a lapel badge saying 'my poppy is on my Barbour'.
Alternatively, "I bought a poppy but it fell off".
Few poppies this year. I think I am not the only one to have stopped wearing one. A century is long enough. Time to move on.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
I expect in face to face company you’d all get on very well with each other. After all everyone on here has an interest in politics in common, for a start.
I expect not.
No, absolutely not
A fat Woke worthy boring semi-retired Lib Dem voting evangelical GP from Leicester? Er, No. NOPE. Noooooo
And @Foxy is right to swerve me. We would despise each other. I'd die of boredom first, tho, before he died of being offended
I like to imagne that you have never watched a RomCom, international man of mystery that you are. (I recommend The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill... Hugh Grant without Richard Curtis. Worked for me, anyway.)
That's the kind of thing they always say in Reel One.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
Let's see some evidence then. I think him more full of bullshit than even credulous you.
So on the one hand you think it happened and it says "a lot about me that these are my friends" and on the other it didn't happen and you want proof that it did?
Get tae fuck, you sad sack o shite
Yeah, I didn't think you could substantiate the tale.
Some people are just born gullible.
So, wait, where are you now? I'm making this up, he's making this up, or it is true as you said before and you are unsurprised that I have "friends like this" who really do this? But, wait, now they don't do this? But wait yes they do? What? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT YOU STUIPID BORING PROVINCIAL QUACK
High inflation means it is almost certainly coming down as a percentage of GDP
Sunak is more careful with his language on debt when speaking in the House of Commons - he said today it is ‘set to fall’ instead of ‘falling’. He’s likely wary of having to correct the record if he repeated the ‘falling’ line in Parliament.
Is it PMQs tomorrow? (Does it happen during the KS debate?) If it does, Sunak has until then to come up with a convincing answer.
Tactically I don’t think Starmer would go there. It’s like 350m for the NHS. If he questions it “in a technicality” people will just hear politicians taking about the debt falling and think that’s good. They might even think Starmer is being ungracious and nitpicking in the face of good news.
Best to go after all the other blatant examples of incompetence on show.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
Let's see some evidence then. I think him more full of bullshit than even credulous you.
So on the one hand you think it happened and it says "a lot about me that these are my friends" and on the other it didn't happen and you want proof that it did?
Get tae fuck, you sad sack o shite
Yeah, I didn't think you could substantiate the tale.
Some people are just born gullible.
So, wait, where are you now? I'm making this up, he's making this up, or it is true as you said before and you are unsurprised that I have "friends like this" who really do this? But, wait, now they don't do this? But wait yes they do? What? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT YOU STUIPID BORING PROVINCIAL QUACK
You are just TRAGIC
I see your inner Trump has taken control of the keyboard.
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Probably a reaction to compulsory poppy fascism.
Definitely noticed a huge decline in people wearing them and indeed people selling them. It does appear that poppy fascism may have backfired: there was a period not too long ago where newsreaders/poilticians/anyone on the telly were lambasted by an angry twitter mob if their failed to wear a poppy (which is easily done by accident – the sodding things just fall off).
Or you change jackets. I buy 2-3 of these buggers a year.
I did wonder if there might be a business opportunity for a lapel badge saying 'my poppy is on my Barbour'.
Alternatively, "I bought a poppy but it fell off".
Few poppies this year. I think I am not the only one to have stopped wearing one. A century is long enough. Time to move on.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
Let's see some evidence then. I think him more full of bullshit than even credulous you.
So on the one hand you think it happened and it says "a lot about me that these are my friends" and on the other it didn't happen and you want proof that it did?
Get tae fuck, you sad sack o shite
Yeah, I didn't think you could substantiate the tale.
Some people are just born gullible.
So, wait, where are you now? I'm making this up, he's making this up, or it is true as you said before and you are unsurprised that I have "friends like this" who really do this? But, wait, now they don't do this? But wait yes they do? What? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT YOU STUIPID BORING PROVINCIAL QUACK
You are just TRAGIC
No, I just think you are gullible enough to buy any bullshit that your racist friends make up.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
I expect in face to face company you’d all get on very well with each other. After all everyone on here has an interest in politics in common, for a start.
I expect not.
No, absolutely not
A fat Woke worthy boring semi-retired Lib Dem voting evangelical GP from Leicester? Er, No. NOPE. Noooooo
And @Foxy is right to swerve me. We would despise each other. I'd die of boredom first, tho, before he died of being offended
I like to imagne that you have never watched a RomCom, international man of mystery that you are. (I recommend The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill... Hugh Grant without Richard Curtis. Worked for me, anyway.)
That's the kind of thing they always say in Reel One.
This evening’s forum is a little like a conversation between Daniel Cleaver and Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones’s diary.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
I expect in face to face company you’d all get on very well with each other. After all everyone on here has an interest in politics in common, for a start.
I expect not.
No, absolutely not
A fat Woke worthy boring semi-retired Lib Dem voting evangelical GP from Leicester? Er, No. NOPE. Noooooo
And @Foxy is right to swerve me. We would despise each other. I'd die of boredom first, tho, before he died of being offended
I like to imagne that you have never watched a RomCom, international man of mystery that you are. (I recommend The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill... Hugh Grant without Richard Curtis. Worked for me, anyway.)
That's the kind of thing they always say in Reel One.
No. The PB lefties are generally awful: spectrumy, humourless, pious and devoid of imagination. I enjoy jousting with you guys on here - lots of you know your political onions, and I am sincerely grateful for the online company - but I seriously never want to meet you. None of you strike me as likely to be "entertaining company" in real life
I am sure you feel the same about me, for diverse reasons. And that's totally cool. That's exactly why we meet on here, in our virtual pub, where all are welcome
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
Let's see some evidence then. I think him more full of bullshit than even credulous you.
So on the one hand you think it happened and it says "a lot about me that these are my friends" and on the other it didn't happen and you want proof that it did?
Get tae fuck, you sad sack o shite
Yeah, I didn't think you could substantiate the tale.
Some people are just born gullible.
So, wait, where are you now? I'm making this up, he's making this up, or it is true as you said before and you are unsurprised that I have "friends like this" who really do this? But, wait, now they don't do this? But wait yes they do? What? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT YOU STUIPID BORING PROVINCIAL QUACK
You are just TRAGIC
No, I just think you are gullible enough to buy any bullshit that your racist friends make up.
How many good friends do you have? I'm guessing less than two, possibly under one. Somewhere between zero and one?
No one could possibly abide your desolate, humourless, self congratulating piety for more than an hour without wanting to stab themselves in the perineum
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
Let's see some evidence then. I think him more full of bullshit than even credulous you.
So on the one hand you think it happened and it says "a lot about me that these are my friends" and on the other it didn't happen and you want proof that it did?
Get tae fuck, you sad sack o shite
Yeah, I didn't think you could substantiate the tale.
Some people are just born gullible.
So, wait, where are you now? I'm making this up, he's making this up, or it is true as you said before and you are unsurprised that I have "friends like this" who really do this? But, wait, now they don't do this? But wait yes they do? What? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT YOU STUIPID BORING PROVINCIAL QUACK
You are just TRAGIC
No, I just think you are gullible enough to buy any bullshit that your racist friends make up.
How many good friends do you have? I'm guessing less than two, possibly under one. Somewhere between zero and one?
No one could possibly abide your desolate, humourless, self congratulating piety for more than an hour without wanting to stab themselves in the perineum
David Davis: Removing warrant requirement is 'fundamental mistake'
David Davis has argued the Government will make a “fundamental mistake” if it goes ahead with plans to let the police search properties without a court warrant.
The former Brexit secretary, a long-standing campaigner for civil rights, said the move would take away a “fundamental foundation stone… of free British society”.
He continued: “It’s there with jury trials and it’s there with the presumption of innocence.
“The right not to have the state kick your door down and come search your house with judicial approval is a massively important British value. The judicial control of the police is vital and must be preserved.”
He is absolutely right on that. But like you it is the first I have heard of it. Surely someone in the media or the Opposition must have heard about it and would be making a noise?
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Probably a reaction to compulsory poppy fascism.
Definitely noticed a huge decline in people wearing them and indeed people selling them. It does appear that poppy fascism may have backfired: there was a period not too long ago where newsreaders/poilticians/anyone on the telly were lambasted by an angry twitter mob if their failed to wear a poppy (which is easily done by accident – the sodding things just fall off).
Or you change jackets. I buy 2-3 of these buggers a year.
I did wonder if there might be a business opportunity for a lapel badge saying 'my poppy is on my Barbour'.
Alternatively, "I bought a poppy but it fell off".
Few poppies this year. I think I am not the only one to have stopped wearing one. A century is long enough. Time to move on.
Maybe it's also time to stop marking 11th November as well as Remembrance Sunday?
The latter was introduced to replace the former in the 1930s because two-minutes silence on a work day was causing ructions. But much more recently (maybe the 1990s?) the British Legion (sorry, Royal British Legion) launched a successful campaign to reinstate Armistice Day in addition to Donkey Jacket Day.
And, of course, shops and offices throughout the land were blackmailed into taking part.
On an LNER train from Edinburgh back to bonnie Dundee. Makes me despair that Scotrail actually operates any service at all. Night and day.
"Late and Never EaRly" as my grandfather used to say, though as a driver on God's Wonderful Railway he had skin in the game.
I couldn’t work out if the post was a criticism of LNER, or Scotrail. Ambiguous.
S’alright, it’s not as if precision and clarity is important in his day job. You can probably err on the side of it being criticism of something with Scot in the name though.
'The Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, made a statement about the standards of behaviour he expects to see in the new Parliament, and Sir Robert Goodwill (Con, Scarborough and Whitby) and Siobhan Baillie (Con, Stroud) proposed and seconded.
Their jokes were fine. Goodwill told a “true story” of canvassing in the 2019 general election on an estate in his constituency which was in previous elections staunchly Labour.
But this time people were “actually crossing the street” to promise their support to the Conservatives, and a voter explained that “Boris is one of us”.
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Your analysis of the problems, and their order of importance, is rather lacking.
Susan Hall was elected because CCHQ in their wisdom nixed two good candidates in favour of a 'leadership-friendly moderniser' who was then brought down by groping allegations.
Braverman is about results. Like Truss, she's happy to be unpopular (and when was the last popular Home Sec.?) and let the results speak for themselves. She is definitely acting up and challenging Sunak to sack her, which lends a somewhat negative impression of her thinking on how likely we are to stop the boats.
This brings us to the only 'real' problem here - that this Government has no policies, except bad ones. They don't want to grow the economy; they don't want to rationalise the State; they don't want to improve the delivery of public services; they don't want to get more houses built - not in a serious and determined fashion anyway.
So we come back to the central question - based on their record and their ideas for governing Britain in the mid to late 2020s, why would anyone want to vote Conservative at the next election?
Oldies have done very well.
And for young northerners who want to learn a trade rather than keep studying then things have never been better.
Yes and many continue to vote Conservative but the polls suggest there's been a healthy swing to Labour even among that core demographic.
The "young northerners" may still come out and support but will they be enough? Will they even bother?
Of course not. We all know the Tories are toast of the distinctly carbonic variety. But there is an answer if you want to look for it. The next government is going to ascend new levels of despair and demoralisation, as we all discover that the Tories were not evil, purely pragmatic about how much money was left and how far we were living beyond our means.
I’ve noticed a new trend in right of centre posting in the last couple of weeks: essentially, yes Labour will win the next election but it’ll be an almighty disaster and soon they will be even less popular than the last lot.
I suppose this is a bit like those stages of grief, and we’ve got to the bargaining stage. Or perhaps the stage of climate change scepticism that we’re at currently, which is “yes the world is warming and yes it’s caused by humans, but mitigation is too costly”.
You may all be right but I’m not sure. It assumes the current government is as competent as anyone could be, that it’s not out of ideas and stale, and that a bit of new blood can’t raise our national performance and wellbeing even allowing for the financial constraints we’re under.
Countries have recovered and prospered from much worse starting points. And of course others have just carried on getting worse. But nothing’s inevitable.
Okay, I’m left of centre but the counterpoint surely is as unpopular as,labour May become the Tories Will lurch to the right after defeat making themselves unelectable and pretty much, barring any disaster, assuring SKS a second term.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
Let's see some evidence then. I think him more full of bullshit than even credulous you.
So on the one hand you think it happened and it says "a lot about me that these are my friends" and on the other it didn't happen and you want proof that it did?
Get tae fuck, you sad sack o shite
Yeah, I didn't think you could substantiate the tale.
Some people are just born gullible.
So, wait, where are you now? I'm making this up, he's making this up, or it is true as you said before and you are unsurprised that I have "friends like this" who really do this? But, wait, now they don't do this? But wait yes they do? What? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT YOU STUIPID BORING PROVINCIAL QUACK
You are just TRAGIC
No, I just think you are gullible enough to buy any bullshit that your racist friends make up.
How many good friends do you have? I'm guessing less than two, possibly under one. Somewhere between zero and one?
No one could possibly abide your desolate, humourless, self congratulating piety for more than an hour without wanting to stab themselves in the perineum
How are the long term relationships going?
lol. One of them is coming round tomorrow. Tho I am unsure what will happen
I am pretty shit at long term romantic relationships. Weirdly, however, I am good at friends, and have a lot. Coz I don't judge and I am very tolerant. And I make sure I choose friends that amuse (and/or they choose me, of course)
I've always thought that should be my emotional epitaph, inasmuch as it matters. Good at Friends, Bad at Family
There are worse Fates
Incidentally. This anecdote I heard tonight is true beyond reasonable doubt (it squares with everything we all know about the guy, esp at the the time) and the way he revealed it was utterly sincere (with shuddering guilt, then relief when we laughed)
Would the PB lefties really have said to him "you are a racist piece of shit" and stormed off? Really? Maybe one or two of the worst of you would have done that (eg @foxy). But far more likely this very funny guy would not have told this funny story in the first place, knowing of your morally sneering reaction. That is your loss. It really is. The Left is in a dreadful place
On an LNER train from Edinburgh back to bonnie Dundee. Makes me despair that Scotrail actually operates any service at all. Night and day.
"Late and Never EaRly" as my grandfather used to say, though as a driver on God's Wonderful Railway he had skin in the game.
I couldn’t work out if the post was a criticism of LNER, or Scotrail. Ambiguous.
S’alright, it’s not as if precision and clarity is important in his day job. You can probably err on the side of it being criticism of something with Scot in the name though.
Confused, LNER and Scotrail being different companies, both operating on the Edinburgh-Dundee services.
David Davis: Removing warrant requirement is 'fundamental mistake'
David Davis has argued the Government will make a “fundamental mistake” if it goes ahead with plans to let the police search properties without a court warrant.
The former Brexit secretary, a long-standing campaigner for civil rights, said the move would take away a “fundamental foundation stone… of free British society”.
He continued: “It’s there with jury trials and it’s there with the presumption of innocence.
“The right not to have the state kick your door down and come search your house with judicial approval is a massively important British value. The judicial control of the police is vital and must be preserved.”
Put everything into the London Mayoral election and hope Corbyn splits the Lab vote there. Win there and that is all that would be talked about - even if you had lost everywhere else. Then you spin that Lab are in disarray and push ahead to a GE with momentum on your side. Run a very good campaign and hope that Lab makes at least one big genuine mistake that your press allies can feast on without looking ridiculous or out of touch. You might just edge a 2017 style result.
Problems - 1) Susan Hall. Whoever thought she was a good idea as a London candidate? 2) Lab aren't hiding that they know your Home Secretary is a total liability. Check out her approval numbers with the public. They are Trussian (or Corbynesque if you prefer). That she is still in office proves that Mr Sunak is either weak or out of touch. Possibly both. 3) The King's Speech is as big a platform as anyone gets in this country. What did we get? Lots of words but no real proposed action. Tinkering round the edges and trying to set wizard-wheeze traps for the Lab leader. What the Americans would call 'Inside Baseball' stuff. The people behind this stuff are just not up to their jobs
Your analysis of the problems, and their order of importance, is rather lacking.
Susan Hall was elected because CCHQ in their wisdom nixed two good candidates in favour of a 'leadership-friendly moderniser' who was then brought down by groping allegations.
Braverman is about results. Like Truss, she's happy to be unpopular (and when was the last popular Home Sec.?) and let the results speak for themselves. She is definitely acting up and challenging Sunak to sack her, which lends a somewhat negative impression of her thinking on how likely we are to stop the boats.
This brings us to the only 'real' problem here - that this Government has no policies, except bad ones. They don't want to grow the economy; they don't want to rationalise the State; they don't want to improve the delivery of public services; they don't want to get more houses built - not in a serious and determined fashion anyway.
So we come back to the central question - based on their record and their ideas for governing Britain in the mid to late 2020s, why would anyone want to vote Conservative at the next election?
Oldies have done very well.
And for young northerners who want to learn a trade rather than keep studying then things have never been better.
Yes and many continue to vote Conservative but the polls suggest there's been a healthy swing to Labour even among that core demographic.
The "young northerners" may still come out and support but will they be enough? Will they even bother?
Of course not. We all know the Tories are toast of the distinctly carbonic variety. But there is an answer if you want to look for it. The next government is going to ascend new levels of despair and demoralisation, as we all discover that the Tories were not evil, purely pragmatic about how much money was left and how far we were living beyond our means.
I’ve noticed a new trend in right of centre posting in the last couple of weeks: essentially, yes Labour will win the next election but it’ll be an almighty disaster and soon they will be even less popular than the last lot.
I suppose this is a bit like those stages of grief, and we’ve got to the bargaining stage. Or perhaps the stage of climate change scepticism that we’re at currently, which is “yes the world is warming and yes it’s caused by humans, but mitigation is too costly”.
You may all be right but I’m not sure. It assumes the current government is as competent as anyone could be, that it’s not out of ideas and stale, and that a bit of new blood can’t raise our national performance and wellbeing even allowing for the financial constraints we’re under.
Countries have recovered and prospered from much worse starting points. And of course others have just carried on getting worse. But nothing’s inevitable.
Okay, I’m left of centre but the counterpoint surely is as unpopular as,labour May become the Tories Will lurch to the right after defeat making themselves unelectable and pretty much, barring any disaster, assuring SKS a second term.
Though you will have the panic of what if they did actually win, much like Tories did with Corbyn
David Davis: Removing warrant requirement is 'fundamental mistake'
David Davis has argued the Government will make a “fundamental mistake” if it goes ahead with plans to let the police search properties without a court warrant.
The former Brexit secretary, a long-standing campaigner for civil rights, said the move would take away a “fundamental foundation stone… of free British society”.
He continued: “It’s there with jury trials and it’s there with the presumption of innocence.
“The right not to have the state kick your door down and come search your house with judicial approval is a massively important British value. The judicial control of the police is vital and must be preserved.”
He is absolutely right on that. But like you it is the first I have heard of it. Surely someone in the media or the Opposition must have heard about it and would be making a noise?
It’s odd. Even if Labour tacitly support it (they’re fond of a bit of authoritarianism) I’m surprised the Lib Dems wouldn’t have made a fuss. Can only assume it’s snuck under the radar until the Davisdar picked it up.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
I really hope that Saville died racked with remorse and guilt, feeling horribly miserable. Somehow, whatever Steve Coogan made of it, I rather doubt he did. Some people are complete and absolute monsters and seem ok with that.
He died drunk in his Penthouse flat overlooking Leeds Roundhay Park if The Reckoning is to be believed
Incidentally for those of you thinking - as on the previous thread - that there really wouldn't be much of a problem with ID cards, do please remember that the quality of the people designing and implementing such a scheme would have the same quality and integrity as those who introduced and implemented Horizon and decided to persecute innocent people on the back of it.
And by "quality" I mean people (for instance recent Post Office witnesses) of whom the adjective "third rate" would be a gross over-estimation. As for "integrity" they have none.
David Davis: Removing warrant requirement is 'fundamental mistake'
David Davis has argued the Government will make a “fundamental mistake” if it goes ahead with plans to let the police search properties without a court warrant.
The former Brexit secretary, a long-standing campaigner for civil rights, said the move would take away a “fundamental foundation stone… of free British society”.
He continued: “It’s there with jury trials and it’s there with the presumption of innocence.
“The right not to have the state kick your door down and come search your house with judicial approval is a massively important British value. The judicial control of the police is vital and must be preserved.”
He is absolutely right on that. But like you it is the first I have heard of it. Surely someone in the media or the Opposition must have heard about it and would be making a noise?
It’s odd. Even if Labour tacitly support it (they’re fond of a bit of authoritarianism) I’m surprised the Lib Dems wouldn’t have made a fuss. Can only assume it’s snuck under the radar until the Davisdar picked it up.
I think these things are civil service initiatives - they seem to be so high and mighty they're just legislating openly now. There was a frighteningly Orwellian policy the other day that 'the Cabinet Office is drawing up plans for' - related to censorship of some sort I think, banning speech that is 'undermining confidence in the UK's institutions'. Where did that come from? Not Rishi's Government who can't even be arsed to look into building more houses, and has a sell-by date of a year anyhow.
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
Let's see some evidence then. I think him more full of bullshit than even credulous you.
So on the one hand you think it happened and it says "a lot about me that these are my friends" and on the other it didn't happen and you want proof that it did?
Get tae fuck, you sad sack o shite
Yeah, I didn't think you could substantiate the tale.
Some people are just born gullible.
So, wait, where are you now? I'm making this up, he's making this up, or it is true as you said before and you are unsurprised that I have "friends like this" who really do this? But, wait, now they don't do this? But wait yes they do? What? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT YOU STUIPID BORING PROVINCIAL QUACK
You are just TRAGIC
No, I just think you are gullible enough to buy any bullshit that your racist friends make up.
How many good friends do you have? I'm guessing less than two, possibly under one. Somewhere between zero and one?
No one could possibly abide your desolate, humourless, self congratulating piety for more than an hour without wanting to stab themselves in the perineum
How are the long term relationships going?
lol. One of them is coming round tomorrow. Tho I am unsure what will happen
I am pretty shit at long term romantic relationships. Weirdly, however, I am good at friends, and have a lot. Coz I don't judge and I am very tolerant. And I make sure I choose friends that amuse (and/or they choose me, of course)
I've always thought that should be my emotional epitaph, inasmuch as it matters. Good at Friends, Bad at Family
There are worse Fates
Incidentally. This anecdote I heard tonight is true beyond reasonable doubt (it squares with everything we all know about the guy, esp at the the time) and the way he revealed it was utterly sincere (with shuddering guilt, then relief when we laughed)
Would the PB lefties really have said to him "you are a racist piece of shit" and stormed off? Really? Maybe one or two of the worst of you would have done that (eg @foxy). But far more likely this very funny guy would not have told this funny story in the first place, knowing of your morally sneering reaction. That is your loss. It really is. The Left is in a dreadful place
"...I don't judge and I am very tolerant."
And you are either very good at titanic levels irony or incredibly lacking in self-awareness; I prefer to believe it is the former.
David Davis: Removing warrant requirement is 'fundamental mistake'
David Davis has argued the Government will make a “fundamental mistake” if it goes ahead with plans to let the police search properties without a court warrant.
The former Brexit secretary, a long-standing campaigner for civil rights, said the move would take away a “fundamental foundation stone… of free British society”.
He continued: “It’s there with jury trials and it’s there with the presumption of innocence.
“The right not to have the state kick your door down and come search your house with judicial approval is a massively important British value. The judicial control of the police is vital and must be preserved.”
He is absolutely right on that. But like you it is the first I have heard of it. Surely someone in the media or the Opposition must have heard about it and would be making a noise?
I think this relates to the absurd situation where a bike or phone is stolen and has GPS tracking so that the owner can tell exactly where it is, but the police can't actually do anything because getting a warrant takes too long.
David Davis: Removing warrant requirement is 'fundamental mistake'
David Davis has argued the Government will make a “fundamental mistake” if it goes ahead with plans to let the police search properties without a court warrant.
The former Brexit secretary, a long-standing campaigner for civil rights, said the move would take away a “fundamental foundation stone… of free British society”.
He continued: “It’s there with jury trials and it’s there with the presumption of innocence.
“The right not to have the state kick your door down and come search your house with judicial approval is a massively important British value. The judicial control of the police is vital and must be preserved.”
He is absolutely right on that. But like you it is the first I have heard of it. Surely someone in the media or the Opposition must have heard about it and would be making a noise?
It’s odd. Even if Labour tacitly support it (they’re fond of a bit of authoritarianism) I’m surprised the Lib Dems wouldn’t have made a fuss. Can only assume it’s snuck under the radar until the Davisdar picked it up.
I think these things are civil service initiatives - they seem to be so high and mighty they're just legislating openly now. There was a frighteningly Orwellian policy the other day that 'the Cabinet Office is drawing up plans for' - related to censorship of some sort I think, banning speech that is 'undermining confidence in the UK's institutions'. Where did that come from? Not Rishi's Government who can't even be arsed to look into building more houses, and has a sell-by date of a year anyhow.
The hybrid variant of that would be departments cooking up crazy policies they assume their ministers would approve of.
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Probably a reaction to compulsory poppy fascism.
Definitely noticed a huge decline in people wearing them and indeed people selling them. It does appear that poppy fascism may have backfired: there was a period not too long ago where newsreaders/poilticians/anyone on the telly were lambasted by an angry twitter mob if their failed to wear a poppy (which is easily done by accident – the sodding things just fall off).
Or you change jackets. I buy 2-3 of these buggers a year.
I did wonder if there might be a business opportunity for a lapel badge saying 'my poppy is on my Barbour'.
Alternatively, "I bought a poppy but it fell off".
Few poppies this year. I think I am not the only one to have stopped wearing one. A century is long enough. Time to move on.
Maybe it's also time to stop marking 11th November as well as Remembrance Sunday?
The latter was introduced to replace the former in the 1930s because two-minutes silence on a work day was causing ructions. But much more recently (maybe the 1990s?) the British Legion (sorry, Royal British Legion) launched a successful campaign to reinstate Armistice Day in addition to Donkey Jacket Day.
And, of course, shops and offices throughout the land were blackmailed into taking part.
Every office (and every rig) I have ever worked in has marked the 2 minute silence on November 11th and it has always been well received and observed. The only people who seem to object to it are those who are politically predisposed to object to the whole concept of paying respects. I gather you are one of those.
On the topic of meeting PB posters of opposite persuasions, my only experience was meeting @MrEd, probably our most enthusiastic Trump supporter, at a PB even a year or two ago.
Despite having clashed with him on PB, I found him quite engaging face to face, especially as he kept fetching me free beers all evening. He still spouted bollocks of course.
Whatever became of MrEd I wonder? (Edit: he was banned in 2022, I see)
David Davis: Removing warrant requirement is 'fundamental mistake'
David Davis has argued the Government will make a “fundamental mistake” if it goes ahead with plans to let the police search properties without a court warrant.
The former Brexit secretary, a long-standing campaigner for civil rights, said the move would take away a “fundamental foundation stone… of free British society”.
He continued: “It’s there with jury trials and it’s there with the presumption of innocence.
“The right not to have the state kick your door down and come search your house with judicial approval is a massively important British value. The judicial control of the police is vital and must be preserved.”
He is absolutely right on that. But like you it is the first I have heard of it. Surely someone in the media or the Opposition must have heard about it and would be making a noise?
I think this relates to the absurd situation where a bike or phone is stolen and has GPS tracking so that the owner can tell exactly where it is, but the police can't actually do anything because getting a warrant takes too long.
Still no excuse. In that case we need to change the system to speed up the production of warrants, not abandon them altogether.
And to be honest, given that the police don't seem to care two figs about catching criminals even when they have all the evidence handed to them on a plate I seriously doubt this is either the reason nor that it will make any diference to solving those sorts of crimes.
Experts actually disagree exactly how many times and into what fractions, but, for example, it is likely that a one the Honourable Tatiana Dent holds 1/60th of the office (give or take) and a one Nicholas Llewellen Palmer 1/20th (give or take). [18/]
The longer term trend on this is not so bad. People much less pessimistic than they were a year ago, and roughly similar to where they were just before Partygate broke out.
As 1997 showed, this doesn't necessarily translate into Tory votes, in fact people may partly feel more optimistic because they expect a change of government. I think there are a few things likely to make the public less pessimistic than in 2022:
- Inflation is now falling, albeit still high, rather than skyrocketing. Particularly noticeable in heating bills as we enter winter - For all that Sunak's government is a bit limp, it's not the same crazed chaos as under latter day Johnson or the Truss-Kwarteng fever dream - The Russia-Ukraine war was pretty terrifying when it started but is now part of the furniture
So I don't think I agree with the header. There's a short term rise in pessimism but it's well down longer term.
Yes, I agree
Also, I think the nation is finally getting over Brexit. The departure of Boris has probably drawn a lot of the poison, but I also sense a genuine feeling of: it's done, like it or not, make the best of it. Clearly a lot of people, a sizeable majority, regret it - as things stand- but I doubt half of those people want to actually revisit it
This itself removes a shadow from British politics. We are in the post-Brexit era now, with its advantages and disadvantages; turns out it wasn't the immediate sunlit uplands promised by some, but neither was it the catastrophe that broke up the UK threatened by others. Meh
Speak for yourself Buster! Brexit is the weeping sore that will continue to infect UK politics no matter how much you wish for it to stop.
Brexit is like having a baby, that grows up to be Jimmy Saville.
I just had drinks with my favourite Cornish friends. All smart and funny
One of them pointed out that Jimmy Savile probably had a lot of fun, and died happy. Which I realised is almost certainly true, and quite disconcerting
Another one told me this superb anecdote. He was living in Bangor in Wales during 9/11. He was so enraged by it the next day he vandalised the local mosque - which was tiny, it being Bangor. Like a two room bungalow. He graffiti'd a Star of David and a swastika on the door, not quite knowing what else to do
The next day he was consumed with guilt and remorse and went BACK to the mosque and graffitoed under his graffiti the word "SORRY"
I just finished watching the Reckoning, about Saville. If that is accurate I don't think there's any chance Saville died happy, or indeed was ever happy. Steve Coogan is superb in it. The only downside is that I found myself whistling the theme tune to Jim'll Fix It as I walked down the street. Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
It isn't entirely surprising that @Leon has friends like this.
You mean - candid, clever, amusing friends? Yes
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
My money is that there was no graffiti of any sort on Bangor mosque.
No, it is true. This guy does not lie
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
Let's see some evidence then. I think him more full of bullshit than even credulous you.
So on the one hand you think it happened and it says "a lot about me that these are my friends" and on the other it didn't happen and you want proof that it did?
Get tae fuck, you sad sack o shite
Yeah, I didn't think you could substantiate the tale.
Some people are just born gullible.
So, wait, where are you now? I'm making this up, he's making this up, or it is true as you said before and you are unsurprised that I have "friends like this" who really do this? But, wait, now they don't do this? But wait yes they do? What? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT YOU STUIPID BORING PROVINCIAL QUACK
You are just TRAGIC
No, I just think you are gullible enough to buy any bullshit that your racist friends make up.
How many good friends do you have? I'm guessing less than two, possibly under one. Somewhere between zero and one?
No one could possibly abide your desolate, humourless, self congratulating piety for more than an hour without wanting to stab themselves in the perineum
How are the long term relationships going?
lol. One of them is coming round tomorrow. Tho I am unsure what will happen
I am pretty shit at long term romantic relationships. Weirdly, however, I am good at friends, and have a lot. Coz I don't judge and I am very tolerant. And I make sure I choose friends that amuse (and/or they choose me, of course)
I've always thought that should be my emotional epitaph, inasmuch as it matters. Good at Friends, Bad at Family
There are worse Fates
Incidentally. This anecdote I heard tonight is true beyond reasonable doubt (it squares with everything we all know about the guy, esp at the the time) and the way he revealed it was utterly sincere (with shuddering guilt, then relief when we laughed)
Would the PB lefties really have said to him "you are a racist piece of shit" and stormed off? Really? Maybe one or two of the worst of you would have done that (eg @foxy). But far more likely this very funny guy would not have told this funny story in the first place, knowing of your morally sneering reaction. That is your loss. It really is. The Left is in a dreadful place
"...I don't judge and I am very tolerant."
And you are either very good at titanic levels irony or incredibly lacking in self-awareness; I prefer to believe it is the former.
I don't judge people MORALLY (unless they are actually criminal and vile); I accept we are all made from Crooked Timber. No doubt my own many failings play a part here
I absolutely judge people intellectually, and in terms of personality, humour, etc. How else do you choose friends?!
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Just caught up on the gist of the speech. Wow. Pedicabs, vaping and forcing criminals to attend sentencing. Parish pump stuff. So parochial; embarrassing for country that aspires to be a global leader.
Purely from a strategic point of view, we're approaching an election, and the government have the initiative by default - they're squandering it, and Sunak continues to be really, really bad at politics. There's no vision, no answers to the big questions. Just performative nibbling around the edges.
Can someone explain to me how one can force someone to attend the dock? What happens if they just leave the country?
No idea but if it's for sentencing then they are about to force that person to do a stretch in HMP so forcing is perhaps not the challenge you think it is.
Meanwhile - it is your fault that the nation is largely poppyless because no one carries cash any more. Proud of yourself?
Probably a reaction to compulsory poppy fascism.
Definitely noticed a huge decline in people wearing them and indeed people selling them. It does appear that poppy fascism may have backfired: there was a period not too long ago where newsreaders/poilticians/anyone on the telly were lambasted by an angry twitter mob if their failed to wear a poppy (which is easily done by accident – the sodding things just fall off).
Or you change jackets. I buy 2-3 of these buggers a year.
I did wonder if there might be a business opportunity for a lapel badge saying 'my poppy is on my Barbour'.
Alternatively, "I bought a poppy but it fell off".
Few poppies this year. I think I am not the only one to have stopped wearing one. A century is long enough. Time to move on.
Maybe it's also time to stop marking 11th November as well as Remembrance Sunday?
The latter was introduced to replace the former in the 1930s because two-minutes silence on a work day was causing ructions. But much more recently (maybe the 1990s?) the British Legion (sorry, Royal British Legion) launched a successful campaign to reinstate Armistice Day in addition to Donkey Jacket Day.
And, of course, shops and offices throughout the land were blackmailed into taking part.
Every office (and every rig) I have ever worked in has marked the 2 minute silence on November 11th and it has always been well received and observed. The only people who seem to object to it are those who are politically predisposed to object to the whole concept of paying respects. I gather you are one of those.
I'd call it performative piety. I don't object to it, I just see it as hollow and insincere because it's enforced by social pressure.
In a smaller, adjacent, shrub-hemmed field, Corporal Dura_Ace was supervising, mostly, as the Arab prisoner covered the British bodies with rocks gathered at the remains of the stone fence surrounding the Hamas stronghold that had been taken out by a Laser-Guided Bomb just days before.
Dura_Ace and the prisoner had potato-sack hauled the nine bodies here - the ambushed SAS patrol and poor old SeanT - and it was a hard, grisly, thankless task.
Dura_Ace had seen it that SeanT was taken care of first, and now all but two of the fallen SAS personnel had been covered with the stones, the Arab's breath heaving with toil and fear, his boyish face blood-streaked, his hands stained red. The corporal was marking each temporary, above-ground grave with a machine gun, alerting the burial squads to these bodies. Now and then the Arab's eyes would meet Dura_Ace's cold gaze, and the prisoner would work harder, even more industriously covering up the carnage he'd help create.
Finally Dura_Ace told the prisoner to take a break, and they both sat on the ground. Dura_Ace lit up a cigarette, which he kept for himself, and then another which he immediately offered to the Arab, who had been watching hungrily.
'British cigarette,' the Arab said, puffing, grinning crazily, desperately. 'I like British... er... Grommit... er... Wrong trousers! Close Shave!'
Dura_Ace nodded, smiling, 'Yeah, that's right. Wallace and Grommit. A Grand Day out, The Wrong Trousers, and then A Close Shave.'
'Yah! Wallace and Grommit!'
They were still sitting when Captain Smithson came tromping into the field, followed by Sergeant Herdson, and the rest of the squad, what was left of it anyway: Blanche_Livermore, Bartholomew_Roberts, and Leon.
'Get him off his Arab arse,' Blanche snarled.
Dura_Ace rose, and the Arab mimicked him, pitching his cigarette. Captain Smithson went from grave to grave, removing ammo from the machine guns Dura_Ace had set there, deactivating the weapons. Sergeant Herdson followed, as if he were tidying up after the captain, gathering the extra ammo. Machine guns in hand, Bartholomew and Blanche and Leon moved slowly, ominously towards the prisoner, forming a loose semi-circle around him. The Arab took anxious notice of this, and went back to stacking rocks atop the body, as if getting the corpses covered would make his problem go away.
He muttered something in Arabic, nodding to the rock-pile graves, still working feverishly, proving his worth, his obedience. He repeated the muttering.
'He says he's not finished yet,' Dura_Ace said.
'That's what he thinks,' Blanche said, barely concealing their hatred. 'You're finished, alright, Rag-head!'
Summoning all their strength, Blanche grabbed the prisoner by his camouflage shirt, and Leon joined in. They dragged him from the stony grave, the latest rock slipping from his fingers, his face contorted with fear as he cried out in Arabic.
Comments
Your second friend is a racist POS who engages in hate crimes.
NEW: Top story from
@Joe_Mayes
>>
— Rishi Sunak said in a campaign-style social media video today that “debt is falling”, claiming victory on one of his five pledges to voters
— IFS: “It’s not accurate to say that debt is falling.”
Uh oh…
Do you not have a sense of humour?
Don't you mean differential turnout patterns now favouring Labour?
"I’m delighted to see the Holocaust Memorial Bill featuring in today’s #KingsSpeech. The Bill will enable the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre to be built in Victoria Tower Gardens in London, next to Parliament and at the very heart of our democracy.
I first set up the Holocaust Commission in 2014 to answer Britain's need for a permanent memorial and learning centre on what is the darkest chapter in human history. At a time when the scourge of antisemitism, prejudice and intolerance are very sadly on the rise, the need for this national memorial has never been more vital. Today’s announcement takes us a step closer to making this a reality and fulfilling the promise I made almost a decade ago."
https://x.com/David_Cameron/status/1721929422536691945?s=20
Victoria Gardens are beautiful. Built id somewhere else, if you need it. Hampstead Heath? Highgate? Near the Jewish heart of North London? Not here. And not by ramming it past the very many people who are sympathetic to the cause, but dispute the need for THIS location
Cameron is such a twat
I found it amusing.
It's only in the last 30-50 years that Islam has developed this hairtrigger reflex reaction which means you get beheaded for cartoons
I can only guess what your friends are like, and the painful "Leicester GP" small talk involved. Ditto @OnlyLivingBoy
It's time for a change, and unless that change were to look like Trump, Jezza, Putin or Hamas I think it will happen. It will.
I suppose this is a bit like those stages of grief, and we’ve got to the bargaining stage. Or perhaps the stage of climate change scepticism that we’re at currently, which is “yes the world is warming and yes it’s caused by humans, but mitigation is too costly”.
You may all be right but I’m not sure. It assumes the current government is as competent as anyone could be, that it’s not out of ideas and stale, and that a bit of new blood can’t raise our national performance and wellbeing even allowing for the financial constraints we’re under.
Countries have recovered and prospered from much worse starting points. And of course others have just carried on getting worse. But nothing’s inevitable.
Twatty friend of X enraged by tons of dead Gazan kids staggers round to tiny local synagogue and paints a Hamas flag and a swastika on it. Next day regretfully marker pens sorry upon it.
Cue gales of fine old British laughter.
He may be a "racist POS who engages in hate crimes" (sigh), but he is not a liar. He revealed this anecdote with sincere and cringing excruciation, and was duly relieved when we all laughed, very loudly
It is of a piece with his behaviour at that time, he was definitely having troubles, and acting out in odd ways. He has told several other very funny stories from those days (funny if you're looking back not funny if you were him at the time)
I am sorry his behaviour and revelation offends the po-faced PB Left, please do not ever invite me to meet you, I could not bear the tedium of your company, and I would surely tell you this to your face, after the third martini
Look at the USA. Biden has actually done pretty well, on several metrics - not least economic - after the horror show of Trump
And yet voters are ignoring that, and heading back towards Trump
And I really doubt Starmer will be able to conjure up the growth performance and economic stimulation of Bidenomics
The West, in toto, is in choppy waters, with the weird crosswinds of Wokeism and the Culture Wars making everything more complex
Net debt as a % GDP
Dataset identifier code: HF6X
Since September 2021: ▲3.1 pps
Since September 2022: ▲2.1 pps
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/bulletins/publicsectorfinances/september2023#september-2023-indicators-at-a-glance
The fact you cannot see this says so much about the Left. You are all so fucking dreary and pious
I keep forgetting Dollis Hill on the Tube Quiz. Second time it's happened. Also Westferry and Devons Road.
https://london.metro-memory.com
Alternatively, "I bought a poppy but it fell off".
A fat Woke worthy boring semi-retired Lib Dem voting evangelical GP from Leicester? Er, No. NOPE. Noooooo
And @Foxy is right to swerve me. We would despise each other. I'd die of boredom first, tho, before he died of being offended
Get tae fuck, you sad sack o shite
He talked about the fact that even in some of the craziest or darkest places - cults, far right groups, gangsters etc - it was possible to make a human connection. In real life - not online forums - we all routinely get on with, befriend, have drinks with, occasionally get romantically attached to, people whose political or religious views we find unfathomable or even reprehensible.
So I honestly doubt that down the pub you’d all be shouting and calling each other wankers. Even Malc and Nigel.
https://x.com/Joe_Mayes/status/1721969871284580591
Is it PMQs tomorrow? (Does it happen during the KS debate?) If it does, Sunak has until then to come up with a convincing answer.
Some people are just born gullible.
David Davis: Removing warrant requirement is 'fundamental mistake'
David Davis has argued the Government will make a “fundamental mistake” if it goes ahead with plans to let the police search properties without a court warrant.
The former Brexit secretary, a long-standing campaigner for civil rights, said the move would take away a “fundamental foundation stone… of free British society”.
He continued: “It’s there with jury trials and it’s there with the presumption of innocence.
“The right not to have the state kick your door down and come search your house with judicial approval is a massively important British value. The judicial control of the police is vital and must be preserved.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/11/07/rishi-sunak-latest-news-parliament-opening-live/#1699376111243
That's the kind of thing they always say in Reel One.
You are just TRAGIC
Best to go after all the other blatant examples of incompetence on show.
I am sure you feel the same about me, for diverse reasons. And that's totally cool. That's exactly why we meet on here, in our virtual pub, where all are welcome
No one could possibly abide your desolate, humourless, self congratulating piety for more than an hour without wanting to stab themselves in the perineum
My central heating has decided not to work.
November wasn't the best time. But at least it isn't January.
The latter was introduced to replace the former in the 1930s because two-minutes silence on a work day was causing ructions. But much more recently (maybe the 1990s?) the British Legion (sorry, Royal British Legion) launched a successful campaign to reinstate Armistice Day in addition to Donkey Jacket Day.
And, of course, shops and offices throughout the land were blackmailed into taking part.
You can probably err on the side of it being criticism of something with Scot in the name though.
Their jokes were fine. Goodwill told a “true story” of canvassing in the 2019 general election on an estate in his constituency which was in previous elections staunchly Labour.
But this time people were “actually crossing the street” to promise their support to the Conservatives, and a voter explained that “Boris is one of us”.
When Goodwill alluded to Boris Johnson’s education at Eton and Balliol, the voter retorted triumphantly: “He had a row with his wife and the police came round.”
https://conservativehome.com/2023/11/07/andrew-gimsons-commons-sketch-sunak-sounded-too-reasonable-to-strike-fear-of-labour-into-peoples-hearts/
I am pretty shit at long term romantic relationships. Weirdly, however, I am good at friends, and have a lot. Coz I don't judge and I am very tolerant. And I make sure I choose friends that amuse (and/or they choose me, of course)
I've always thought that should be my emotional epitaph, inasmuch as it matters. Good at Friends, Bad at Family
There are worse Fates
Incidentally. This anecdote I heard tonight is true beyond reasonable doubt (it squares with everything we all know about the guy, esp at the the time) and the way he revealed it was utterly sincere (with shuddering guilt, then relief when we laughed)
Would the PB lefties really have said to him "you are a racist piece of shit" and stormed off? Really? Maybe one or two of the worst of you would have done that (eg @foxy). But far more likely this very funny guy would not have told this funny story in the first place, knowing of your morally sneering reaction. That is your loss. It really is. The Left is in a dreadful place
Or rather there are plenty. All of them unrepeatable in company. Even this one.
And by "quality" I mean people (for instance recent Post Office witnesses) of whom the adjective "third rate" would be a gross over-estimation. As for "integrity" they have none.
Jack Surfleet
@jacksurfleet
·
4m
Wednesday's DAILY MAIL: Pray they don't end up with a riot at the Cenotaph
#tomorrowspaperstoday
And you are either very good at titanic levels irony or incredibly lacking in self-awareness; I prefer to believe it is the former.
(sorry)
Despite having clashed with him on PB, I found him quite engaging face to face, especially as he kept fetching me free beers all evening. He still spouted bollocks of course.
Whatever became of MrEd I wonder? (Edit: he was banned in 2022, I see)
And to be honest, given that the police don't seem to care two figs about catching criminals even when they have all the evidence handed to them on a plate I seriously doubt this is either the reason nor that it will make any diference to solving those sorts of crimes.
Here’s the thread header, in case you want to wade in (you probably don’t).
https://x.com/tc1415/status/1721969054301204836?s=46
But this comment caught my eye in tweet 18:
Experts actually disagree exactly how many times and into what fractions, but, for example, it is likely that a one the Honourable Tatiana Dent holds 1/60th of the office (give or take) and a one Nicholas Llewellen Palmer 1/20th (give or take). [18/]
Is that him?
EDIT: on googling it appears not, sadly.
I absolutely judge people intellectually, and in terms of personality, humour, etc. How else do you choose friends?!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12721053/Football-hooligans-planning-team-protect-Cenotaph-pro-Palestine-protestors-police-fearing-thousand-come-London-rally-against-war-Gaza-set-place.html
In a smaller, adjacent, shrub-hemmed field, Corporal Dura_Ace was supervising, mostly, as the Arab prisoner covered the British bodies with rocks gathered at the remains of the stone fence surrounding the Hamas stronghold that had been taken out by a Laser-Guided Bomb just days before.
Dura_Ace and the prisoner had potato-sack hauled the nine bodies here - the ambushed SAS patrol and poor old SeanT - and it was a hard, grisly, thankless task.
Dura_Ace had seen it that SeanT was taken care of first, and now all but two of the fallen SAS personnel had been covered with the stones, the Arab's breath heaving with toil and fear, his boyish face blood-streaked, his hands stained red. The corporal was marking each temporary, above-ground grave with a machine gun, alerting the burial squads to these bodies. Now and then the Arab's eyes would meet Dura_Ace's cold gaze, and the prisoner would work harder, even more industriously covering up the carnage he'd help create.
Finally Dura_Ace told the prisoner to take a break, and they both sat on the ground. Dura_Ace lit up a cigarette, which he kept for himself, and then another which he immediately offered to the Arab, who had been watching hungrily.
'British cigarette,' the Arab said, puffing, grinning crazily, desperately. 'I like British... er... Grommit... er... Wrong trousers! Close Shave!'
Dura_Ace nodded, smiling, 'Yeah, that's right. Wallace and Grommit. A Grand Day out, The Wrong Trousers, and then A Close Shave.'
'Yah! Wallace and Grommit!'
They were still sitting when Captain Smithson came tromping into the field, followed by Sergeant Herdson, and the rest of the squad, what was left of it anyway: Blanche_Livermore, Bartholomew_Roberts, and Leon.
'Get him off his Arab arse,' Blanche snarled.
Dura_Ace rose, and the Arab mimicked him, pitching his cigarette. Captain Smithson went from grave to grave, removing ammo from the machine guns Dura_Ace had set there, deactivating the weapons. Sergeant Herdson followed, as if he were tidying up after the captain, gathering the extra ammo. Machine guns in hand, Bartholomew and Blanche and Leon moved slowly, ominously towards the prisoner, forming a loose semi-circle around him. The Arab took anxious notice of this, and went back to stacking rocks atop the body, as if getting the corpses covered would make his problem go away.
He muttered something in Arabic, nodding to the rock-pile graves, still working feverishly, proving his worth, his obedience. He repeated the muttering.
'He says he's not finished yet,' Dura_Ace said.
'That's what he thinks,' Blanche said, barely concealing their hatred. 'You're finished, alright, Rag-head!'
Summoning all their strength, Blanche grabbed the prisoner by his camouflage shirt, and Leon joined in. They dragged him from the stony grave, the latest rock slipping from his fingers, his face contorted with fear as he cried out in Arabic.
[continued....]