Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
55% of voters support abolishing IHT completely, 65% want to raise the £325k threshold for it
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
19% is going to be a high water marker for Tory voters in future polling...
Reduced Inheritance tax is really going to help people seeing 70%+ rates of tax as they hit the £50,000 and £100,000 wage barriers.
For reference I quit a contract this week because if I worked one more day I hit that magic £100,000 point - it simply wasn't worth the stress for pittance I would have got for the next 2 months..
I mean "help Rishi".
It's only ~30k estates that pay iHT. each year, which is not even a rounding error in numbers.
And Rishi will probably have most of those anyway.
It's like him thinking that he can squeeze much electoral advantage out of the 1.5-2% of people in London directly affected by ULEZ.
It's a tiny group, and the even tinier number he has, he has anyway.
They are playing the 1980s violin when we have a National Debt ballooned by all the recent PMs, and Rishi studiously ignoring a ~£100bn annual deficit. Since it's past the watershed, I'll say that I have never seen anyone pissing quite so profusely on his own political grave before.
It would be better spent dealing with "Brown Bulge" 70% tax rate, though that could equally be done in a cost neutral manner. I wonder if they think of that one?
We don't want cuts in IHT. What we want is increases to the personal allowance to £15k and to the 40% tax threshold to £60k. And reduction of NI from 12 to 10% to help the workers 👍
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
55% of voters support abolishing IHT completely, 65% want to raise the £325k threshold for it
🌹 Lab 46% (+2) 🌳 Con 19% (-4) 🔶 Lib Dem 9% (-1) ➡️ Reform 10% (+2) 🌍 Greens 8% (+1) 🎗️ SNP 5% (+1)
Imagine the clamor to bring Boris back if he was still in Parliament lol!
The abacus at Electoral Calculus is going to blow up.
No it's still working. LDs are the Official Opposition on those figures, new boundaries 25% tactical voting:
(Note: I can't put SNP % in without doing a full Scottish prediction, so it's defaulted to 4%)
Perhaps Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party?
Who knows?
The Tories' big challenge, to which no one yet seems to have found the answer, is to change this relentless trend:
That is quite a trend. It does point inexorably to a ~20-25% result at the GE (or even worse) - and total electoral oblivion
Should also be pointed out the Conservative average poll rating in the days before Boris resigned as PM was more than the combined Tory and Reform vote in tonight's and last night's polls and about 10-15% more than the polls in the days before Truss resigned as PM too.
It was Tory MPs who decided to get rid of Boris NOT Tory members and it is Tory MPs who will face the punishment for that, on the latest polls over half of them, maybe even 3/4 of them, will lose their seats.
If that is the case you can be assured Tory members will pick the most hardline rightwinger they can find as leader in Opposition to win back voters lost to Reform, they would even pick Farage if they had the chance
Every vote you gain from Reform will cost two to the LDs/Labour.
No it won't, the 19% now still voting Tory would still vote Tory no matter what. It is the 10%+ now voting Reform he has to win back first, forget voters gone Labour/LD for now, his first task is to get the Conservative voteshare back from under 20% to around 30%
The Brexit Party got 2% in the 2019 GE, safe to say those votes have gone to Reform.
So only 8% max or the 2019 44.7% (GB) has leaked from the Tories to Reform.
Controversial statement - this is a bit of a mini Clause 4 for Starmer.
As a statement of intent it shows that he is in control of his party, and while there is a small rebellion, his Labour is a fundamentally different proposition to Corbyn's Labour.
Expect some of the people who have resigned to return before too long.
🌹 Lab 46% (+2) 🌳 Con 19% (-4) 🔶 Lib Dem 9% (-1) ➡️ Reform 10% (+2) 🌍 Greens 8% (+1) 🎗️ SNP 5% (+1)
Imagine the clamor to bring Boris back if he was still in Parliament lol!
The abacus at Electoral Calculus is going to blow up.
No it's still working. LDs are the Official Opposition on those figures, new boundaries 25% tactical voting:
(Note: I can't put SNP % in without doing a full Scottish prediction, so it's defaulted to 4%)
Perhaps Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party?
Who knows?
The Tories' big challenge, to which no one yet seems to have found the answer, is to change this relentless trend:
That "relentless" trend is an artefact of your imagination. The shifts in support have been created by a succession of separate events. The common underlying cause perhaps being the rupture in the party that Boris Johnson created to "Get Brexit Done", but it does not mean that it is a trend that is bound to continue.
Of course I know that, my tongue is firmly in my cheek.
No, you’re right. That is a definite trend - nightmarish as it may be for right wingers like me - it is there
This is hilarious.
Ok. So you don’t think the Tories are trending down. It’s just a sequence of unfortunate events, meaning nothing. Tomorrow they’ll be polling 43% again. Got it
Duh. That's not what I mean.
Given the Tories are currently in the twenties, at best, it would take a series of unlikely events to move their support back up to 43%.
My contention is that relative support for parties is static, in the absence of anything to change it.
Events and actions over the next year might increase Tory support, or they may depress it further. To some extent that depends on what the Tories do, and to some extent it depends on events outside of their control. There's no underlying force that is continuing to act to continue the apparent trend.
I find it hilarious that you are unable to grasp this simple relationship between cause and effect, and yet you are always self-identifying as the smartest person in the room.
No. These trends exist. They are all made up of discrete events which are seemingly non-causally related - yet they exist
Correctly identifying one can make money - hence this site. @Benpointer’s graph and his trend line is, at the very least, worth looking at - and may well be indicative
I am NOT surprised you don’t get this seeing as you were - I believe - one of the morons cheering Sunak’s “genius reshuffle”
Controversial statement - this is a bit of a mini Clause 4 for Starmer.
As a statement of intent it shows that he is in control of his party, and while there is a small rebellion, his Labour is a fundamentally different proposition to Corbyn's Labour.
Expect some of the people who have resigned to return before too long.
We don't want cuts in IHT. What we want is increases to the personal allowance to £15k and to the 40% tax threshold to £60k. And reduction of NI from 12 to 10% to help the workers 👍
You'd think shifting the 40% threshold up a bit would be a guaranteed vote winner. Doesn't fit with the whole 'bungs to pensioners' strategy though.
🌹 Lab 46% (+2) 🌳 Con 19% (-4) 🔶 Lib Dem 9% (-1) ➡️ Reform 10% (+2) 🌍 Greens 8% (+1) 🎗️ SNP 5% (+1)
Imagine the clamor to bring Boris back if he was still in Parliament lol!
The abacus at Electoral Calculus is going to blow up.
No it's still working. LDs are the Official Opposition on those figures, new boundaries 25% tactical voting:
(Note: I can't put SNP % in without doing a full Scottish prediction, so it's defaulted to 4%)
Perhaps Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party?
Who knows?
The Tories' big challenge, to which no one yet seems to have found the answer, is to change this relentless trend:
You and the wiki Opinion polling people are clearly Tory trolls. How dare you and they use such an outdated graph, which blatantly ignores both of the latest polls putting the Conservatives on 19%?
Now where am I? I fully sympathise with the Labour rebels. Am I in the wrong party?
Me to. As I replied to Owen Smith's latest email asking for a donation 'I support Labour because their heart is in the right place. With Keir Starmer it isn't anymore. No more emails please".
Do you want the good news or the bad news first Sir Keir?
Good news is you've got a 27pp poll lead. Bad news is some old fart on PB.com isn't prepared to shell out a fiver from his pension.
So I'll prepare your tearful resignation speech, shall I?
Any reason why you choose to be so rude without even being witty?
Personally, I thought it was rude and witty.
I'd thought he might be the lamented Lympe-poll (sp?). But it's obvious he isn't
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
Er, what? I’ve said multiple times there’s no way I’m voting Tory in 2024. The sacking of Braverman and appointment of Cameron had only made me more determined to go that way
FWIW I think the inheritance tax thing is pitiful. It will barely do anything. It’s far too late and it’s way too trivial and the optics are awful, with Sunak being a billionaire
There’s not a single grown-up among them, is there? It’s government by the smallest, pettiest, thickest individuals our country has had the misfortune to produce.
🌹 Lab 46% (+2) 🌳 Con 19% (-4) 🔶 Lib Dem 9% (-1) ➡️ Reform 10% (+2) 🌍 Greens 8% (+1) 🎗️ SNP 5% (+1)
Imagine the clamor to bring Boris back if he was still in Parliament lol!
The abacus at Electoral Calculus is going to blow up.
No it's still working. LDs are the Official Opposition on those figures, new boundaries 25% tactical voting:
(Note: I can't put SNP % in without doing a full Scottish prediction, so it's defaulted to 4%)
Perhaps Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party?
Who knows?
The Tories' big challenge, to which no one yet seems to have found the answer, is to change this relentless trend:
That is quite a trend. It does point inexorably to a ~20-25% result at the GE (or even worse) - and total electoral oblivion
Should also be pointed out the Conservative average poll rating in the days before Boris resigned as PM was more than the combined Tory and Reform vote in tonight's and last night's polls and about 10-15% more than the polls in the days before Truss resigned as PM too.
It was Tory MPs who decided to get rid of Boris NOT Tory members and it is Tory MPs who will face the punishment for that, on the latest polls over half of them, maybe even 3/4 of them, will lose their seats.
If that is the case you can be assured Tory members will pick the most hardline rightwinger they can find as leader in Opposition to win back voters lost to Reform, they would even pick Farage if they had the chance
Every vote you gain from Reform will cost two to the LDs/Labour.
No it won't, the 19% now still voting Tory would still vote Tory no matter what. It is the 10%+ now voting Reform he has to win back first, forget voters gone Labour/LD for now, his first task is to get the Conservative voteshare back from under 20% to around 30%
The Brexit Party got 2% in the 2019 GE, safe to say those votes have gone to Reform.
So only 8% max or the 2019 44.7% (GB) has leaked from the Tories to Reform.
Where has the other 18% gone?
Neither of the polls reporting the Tories on 19% appear to have published their tables yet.
However, the YouGov on 8 Nov which had the Tories on 23%, which was their lowest recent share before today, split the 2019GE Con vote as:
🌹 Lab 46% (+2) 🌳 Con 19% (-4) 🔶 Lib Dem 9% (-1) ➡️ Reform 10% (+2) 🌍 Greens 8% (+1) 🎗️ SNP 5% (+1)
Imagine the clamor to bring Boris back if he was still in Parliament lol!
The abacus at Electoral Calculus is going to blow up.
No it's still working. LDs are the Official Opposition on those figures, new boundaries 25% tactical voting:
(Note: I can't put SNP % in without doing a full Scottish prediction, so it's defaulted to 4%)
Perhaps Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party?
Who knows?
The Tories' big challenge, to which no one yet seems to have found the answer, is to change this relentless trend:
That is quite a trend. It does point inexorably to a ~20-25% result at the GE (or even worse) - and total electoral oblivion
Should also be pointed out the Conservative average poll rating in the days before Boris resigned as PM was more than the combined Tory and Reform vote in tonight's and last night's polls and about 10-15% more than the polls in the days before Truss resigned as PM too.
It was Tory MPs who decided to get rid of Boris NOT Tory members and it is Tory MPs who will face the punishment for that, on the latest polls over half of them, maybe even 3/4 of them, will lose their seats.
If that is the case you can be assured Tory members will pick the most hardline rightwinger they can find as leader in Opposition to win back voters lost to Reform, they would even pick Farage if they had the chance
Every vote you gain from Reform will cost two to the LDs/Labour.
No it won't, the 19% now still voting Tory would still vote Tory no matter what. It is the 10%+ now voting Reform he has to win back first, forget voters gone Labour/LD for now, his first task is to get the Conservative voteshare back from under 20% to around 30%
The Brexit Party got 2% in the 2019 GE, safe to say those votes have gone to Reform.
So only 8% max or the 2019 44.7% (GB) has leaked from the Tories to Reform.
Where has the other 18% gone?
The other 18% ain't coming back before the next election. They mostly voted to get Brexit done and beat Corbyn, both of which have been done (and for Boris who the Tories stupidly dumped).
The 8% are the ones who need to be won back not see further leakage to. It was listening to advice such as yours to dump Braverman to win back the 18% has not won a single one of them back, all it has done is seen further leakage to Reform!
🌹 Lab 46% (+2) 🌳 Con 19% (-4) 🔶 Lib Dem 9% (-1) ➡️ Reform 10% (+2) 🌍 Greens 8% (+1) 🎗️ SNP 5% (+1)
Imagine the clamor to bring Boris back if he was still in Parliament lol!
The abacus at Electoral Calculus is going to blow up.
No it's still working. LDs are the Official Opposition on those figures, new boundaries 25% tactical voting:
(Note: I can't put SNP % in without doing a full Scottish prediction, so it's defaulted to 4%)
Perhaps Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party?
Who knows?
The Tories' big challenge, to which no one yet seems to have found the answer, is to change this relentless trend:
That "relentless" trend is an artefact of your imagination. The shifts in support have been created by a succession of separate events. The common underlying cause perhaps being the rupture in the party that Boris Johnson created to "Get Brexit Done", but it does not mean that it is a trend that is bound to continue.
Of course I know that, my tongue is firmly in my cheek.
No, you’re right. That is a definite trend - nightmarish as it may be for right wingers like me - it is there
This is hilarious.
Ok. So you don’t think the Tories are trending down. It’s just a sequence of unfortunate events, meaning nothing. Tomorrow they’ll be polling 43% again. Got it
Duh. That's not what I mean.
Given the Tories are currently in the twenties, at best, it would take a series of unlikely events to move their support back up to 43%.
My contention is that relative support for parties is static, in the absence of anything to change it.
Events and actions over the next year might increase Tory support, or they may depress it further. To some extent that depends on what the Tories do, and to some extent it depends on events outside of their control. There's no underlying force that is continuing to act to continue the apparent trend.
I find it hilarious that you are unable to grasp this simple relationship between cause and effect, and yet you are always self-identifying as the smartest person in the room.
The 'trend' is really a trend in self-harm on the part of the Tories. No sooner does one calamity or scandal knock their ratings down a percent or two than they create another. In that sense, unless the Tories can change their general competence, they may be likely to drift down further.
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
55% of voters support abolishing IHT completely, 65% want to raise the £325k threshold for it
Until today I thought it was EXTREMELY unlikely Sunak could face a challenge. But his reshuffle is so obviously catastrophic - and the Rwanda debacle only makes it worse - I believe he is now at risk
I mean: Lord David Cameron. FFS
On the same day you sack a totemic figure of the right, guaranteeing civil war in the party
Two more polls like this and he’s in deep shit. Because, the Tories have nothing to lose. They are facing actual extinction. Under 50 seats
Kick out Sunak put a proper right winger in and go down fighting with, at least, some honour
Can you never just take things in your stride and be calm. There is enough in this world to get excited about or angry about without the constant hyperbola and panic and requirement to post and convince yourself that you are right or have an IQ bigger than everyone here.
Your life must be exhausting. Chill for a bit. Maybe get a dog.
It’s 4am and I’m in a jungle drinking red wine. I’ll do what I like
Where are you?
The rainforest of the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia
Specifically I am in this hotel. A snip at £2154 a night. Luckily I am working for the gazette so on a freebie. It is outstanding
Very nice. I think Cambodia has changed an awful lot over the years, witness "luxury hotels". When were you last there.
Last year - which gave me the idea for this gazette article. Seeing how much Cambodia has changed
My prior visit before that one was in 2008 so yeah, many changes
I first came to Cambodia in the late 1990s when it was still shattered from the Khmer Rouge
Now I am eating the best chocolate granola of my life, it is freshly made and wrapped in a banana leaf
Good book there. I read it last year.
It makes sense of why Maoism has remained popular in so many parts of the world.
Yes, so far so good
The juxtaposition of the book, and the location, and the luxury food item was too photogenic to resist
I’ve also got Frank Dikotter’s “the Cultural Revolution” on audio - so total immersion in the subject
Dikotter is very good on Totalitarianism.
Maoism like Islamism has an appeal that we need to understand if it is to be defeated. An economic system that is endemically corrupt and excludes the poor is very vulnerable to such revolutions, as Chiang and a number of Middle East authoritarians found out.
Social and economic justice are needed for order to be sustained. Otherwise bloody Revolution follows.
Thanks. I am fascinated by Chinese history - so much we don’t know. Will read
I agree on Maoism. It needs to be understood - apparently brutal and violent - yet it has had worldwide appeal. I want to know more
In order to make a violent revolution you do need some psychopaths like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Mugabe or Bin Laden, but that isn't enough. You need the support of a wider group of normal people, and the acquiescence of more.
The key to that is ideological mobilisation of the many who have been marginalised and feel no loyalty to the old regime. As Mao pointed out "a revolutionary is a fish that needs a sea to swim in"
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
55% of voters support abolishing IHT completely, 65% want to raise the £325k threshold for it
That's as maybe, but they do not put it ahead of other items such as fixing our decrepit civic infrastructure and institutions.
As someone who suffers management decisions rather than is included in them - I sometimes picture just a dashboard with "biggest number at the top" when it comes to this stuff.
Recently after a security audit we had X-points of 'critical' security vulnerability and X++ points of "medium" vulnerabilities. Managements decided we should focus on the medium ones first as it made the headline number go down quicker - damn the criticality.
I can well imagine Rishi being presented with an Excel graph showing 'biggest numbers of things people care about' and having inheritance tax or whatever at the top.
We don't want cuts in IHT. What we want is increases to the personal allowance to £15k and to the 40% tax threshold to £60k. And reduction of NI from 12 to 10% to help the workers 👍
What we need witth iHT is an overhaul to broaden the base, raise the revenue raised to help provide services and close the deficit, and a comprehensive reform especially around areas of tax-free gifts.
It's one area of tax predicted to increase revenue anyway over the next 10 years as wealth concentrates more than previously with age. I'd say we want to boost revenue from iHT by about half.
🌹 Lab 46% (+2) 🌳 Con 19% (-4) 🔶 Lib Dem 9% (-1) ➡️ Reform 10% (+2) 🌍 Greens 8% (+1) 🎗️ SNP 5% (+1)
Imagine the clamor to bring Boris back if he was still in Parliament lol!
The abacus at Electoral Calculus is going to blow up.
No it's still working. LDs are the Official Opposition on those figures, new boundaries 25% tactical voting:
(Note: I can't put SNP % in without doing a full Scottish prediction, so it's defaulted to 4%)
Perhaps Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party?
Who knows?
The Tories' big challenge, to which no one yet seems to have found the answer, is to change this relentless trend:
That is quite a trend. It does point inexorably to a ~20-25% result at the GE (or even worse) - and total electoral oblivion
Should also be pointed out the Conservative average poll rating in the days before Boris resigned as PM was more than the combined Tory and Reform vote in tonight's and last night's polls and about 10-15% more than the polls in the days before Truss resigned as PM too.
It was Tory MPs who decided to get rid of Boris NOT Tory members and it is Tory MPs who will face the punishment for that, on the latest polls over half of them, maybe even 3/4 of them, will lose their seats.
If that is the case you can be assured Tory members will pick the most hardline rightwinger they can find as leader in Opposition to win back voters lost to Reform, they would even pick Farage if they had the chance
Every vote you gain from Reform will cost two to the LDs/Labour.
No it won't, the 19% now still voting Tory would still vote Tory no matter what. It is the 10%+ now voting Reform he has to win back first, forget voters gone Labour/LD for now, his first task is to get the Conservative voteshare back from under 20% to around 30%
The Brexit Party got 2% in the 2019 GE, safe to say those votes have gone to Reform.
So only 8% max or the 2019 44.7% (GB) has leaked from the Tories to Reform.
Where has the other 18% gone?
Neither of the polls reporting the Tories on 19% appear to have published their tables yet.
However, the YouGov on 8 Nov which had the Tories on 23%, which was their lowest recent share before today, split the 2019GE Con vote as:
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
55% of voters support abolishing IHT completely, 65% want to raise the £325k threshold for it
That's as maybe, but they do not put it ahead of other items such as fixing our decrepit civic infrastructure and institutions.
IHT doesn’t raise much. Abolish it, and abolish the step up in tax base cost on inheritance of a business. And at the same time introduce time-limited retirement relief (as in Ireland) to encourage businesses to be passed to the next generation while the founder is still economically active. Then introduce a progressively increasing land tax.
That will facilitate far more efficient succession, avoid owners running down their businesses toward death, stop people sitting on unproductive real estate assets, and remove the incentive for new inheritors of family businesses to sell at the first opportunity.
Until today I thought it was EXTREMELY unlikely Sunak could face a challenge. But his reshuffle is so obviously catastrophic - and the Rwanda debacle only makes it worse - I believe he is now at risk
I mean: Lord David Cameron. FFS
On the same day you sack a totemic figure of the right, guaranteeing civil war in the party
Two more polls like this and he’s in deep shit. Because, the Tories have nothing to lose. They are facing actual extinction. Under 50 seats
Kick out Sunak put a proper right winger in and go down fighting with, at least, some honour
Can you never just take things in your stride and be calm. There is enough in this world to get excited about or angry about without the constant hyperbola and panic and requirement to post and convince yourself that you are right or have an IQ bigger than everyone here.
Your life must be exhausting. Chill for a bit. Maybe get a dog.
It’s 4am and I’m in a jungle drinking red wine. I’ll do what I like
Where are you?
The rainforest of the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia
Specifically I am in this hotel. A snip at £2154 a night. Luckily I am working for the gazette so on a freebie. It is outstanding
Very nice. I think Cambodia has changed an awful lot over the years, witness "luxury hotels". When were you last there.
Last year - which gave me the idea for this gazette article. Seeing how much Cambodia has changed
My prior visit before that one was in 2008 so yeah, many changes
I first came to Cambodia in the late 1990s when it was still shattered from the Khmer Rouge
Now I am eating the best chocolate granola of my life, it is freshly made and wrapped in a banana leaf
Good book there. I read it last year.
It makes sense of why Maoism has remained popular in so many parts of the world.
Yes, so far so good
The juxtaposition of the book, and the location, and the luxury food item was too photogenic to resist
I’ve also got Frank Dikotter’s “the Cultural Revolution” on audio - so total immersion in the subject
Dikotter is very good on Totalitarianism.
Maoism like Islamism has an appeal that we need to understand if it is to be defeated. An economic system that is endemically corrupt and excludes the poor is very vulnerable to such revolutions, as Chiang and a number of Middle East authoritarians found out.
Social and economic justice are needed for order to be sustained. Otherwise bloody Revolution follows.
Thanks. I am fascinated by Chinese history - so much we don’t know. Will read
I agree on Maoism. It needs to be understood - apparently brutal and violent - yet it has had worldwide appeal. I want to know more
In order to make a violent revolution you do need some psychopaths like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Mugabe or Bin Laden, but that isn't enough. You need the support of a wider group of normal people, and the acquiescence of more.
The key to that is ideological mobilisation of the many who have been marginalised and feel no loyalty to the old regime. As Mao pointed out "a revolutionary is a fish that needs a sea to swim in"
So it is too with Hamas.
On the latter point, bollocks. What Hamas needed was pots of money, and powerful allies with a wider geopolitical agenda.
Absolutely nothing "revolutionary" about Islamist militancy - it's a throwback to the Middle Ages, if anything.
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
Er, what? I’ve said multiple times there’s no way I’m voting Tory in 2024. The sacking of Braverman and appointment of Cameron had only made me more determined to go that way
FWIW I think the inheritance tax thing is pitiful. It will barely do anything. It’s far too late and it’s way too trivial and the optics are awful, with Sunak being a billionaire
Clear?
If you don't mind me asking, how will you vote, or will you abstain?
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
55% of voters support abolishing IHT completely, 65% want to raise the £325k threshold for it
🌹 Lab 46% (+2) 🌳 Con 19% (-4) 🔶 Lib Dem 9% (-1) ➡️ Reform 10% (+2) 🌍 Greens 8% (+1) 🎗️ SNP 5% (+1)
Imagine the clamor to bring Boris back if he was still in Parliament lol!
The abacus at Electoral Calculus is going to blow up.
No it's still working. LDs are the Official Opposition on those figures, new boundaries 25% tactical voting:
(Note: I can't put SNP % in without doing a full Scottish prediction, so it's defaulted to 4%)
Perhaps Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party?
Who knows?
The Tories' big challenge, to which no one yet seems to have found the answer, is to change this relentless trend:
That is quite a trend. It does point inexorably to a ~20-25% result at the GE (or even worse) - and total electoral oblivion
Should also be pointed out the Conservative average poll rating in the days before Boris resigned as PM was more than the combined Tory and Reform vote in tonight's and last night's polls and about 10-15% more than the polls in the days before Truss resigned as PM too.
It was Tory MPs who decided to get rid of Boris NOT Tory members and it is Tory MPs who will face the punishment for that, on the latest polls over half of them, maybe even 3/4 of them, will lose their seats.
If that is the case you can be assured Tory members will pick the most hardline rightwinger they can find as leader in Opposition to win back voters lost to Reform, they would even pick Farage if they had the chance
Every vote you gain from Reform will cost two to the LDs/Labour.
No it won't, the 19% now still voting Tory would still vote Tory no matter what. It is the 10%+ now voting Reform he has to win back first, forget voters gone Labour/LD for now, his first task is to get the Conservative voteshare back from under 20% to around 30%
The Brexit Party got 2% in the 2019 GE, safe to say those votes have gone to Reform.
So only 8% max or the 2019 44.7% (GB) has leaked from the Tories to Reform.
Where has the other 18% gone?
Neither of the polls reporting the Tories on 19% appear to have published their tables yet.
However, the YouGov on 8 Nov which had the Tories on 23%, which was their lowest recent share before today, split the 2019GE Con vote as:
🌹 Lab 46% (+2) 🌳 Con 19% (-4) 🔶 Lib Dem 9% (-1) ➡️ Reform 10% (+2) 🌍 Greens 8% (+1) 🎗️ SNP 5% (+1)
Imagine the clamor to bring Boris back if he was still in Parliament lol!
The abacus at Electoral Calculus is going to blow up.
No it's still working. LDs are the Official Opposition on those figures, new boundaries 25% tactical voting:
(Note: I can't put SNP % in without doing a full Scottish prediction, so it's defaulted to 4%)
Perhaps Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party?
Who knows?
The Tories' big challenge, to which no one yet seems to have found the answer, is to change this relentless trend:
That is quite a trend. It does point inexorably to a ~20-25% result at the GE (or even worse) - and total electoral oblivion
Should also be pointed out the Conservative average poll rating in the days before Boris resigned as PM was more than the combined Tory and Reform vote in tonight's and last night's polls and about 10-15% more than the polls in the days before Truss resigned as PM too.
It was Tory MPs who decided to get rid of Boris NOT Tory members and it is Tory MPs who will face the punishment for that, on the latest polls over half of them, maybe even 3/4 of them, will lose their seats.
If that is the case you can be assured Tory members will pick the most hardline rightwinger they can find as leader in Opposition to win back voters lost to Reform, they would even pick Farage if they had the chance
Every vote you gain from Reform will cost two to the LDs/Labour.
No it won't, the 19% now still voting Tory would still vote Tory no matter what. It is the 10%+ now voting Reform he has to win back first, forget voters gone Labour/LD for now, his first task is to get the Conservative voteshare back from under 20% to around 30%
The Brexit Party got 2% in the 2019 GE, safe to say those votes have gone to Reform.
So only 8% max or the 2019 44.7% (GB) has leaked from the Tories to Reform.
Where has the other 18% gone?
The other 18% ain't coming back before the next election. They mostly voted to get Brexit done and beat Corbyn, both of which have been done (and for Boris who the Tories stupidly dumped).
The 8% are the ones who need to be won back not see further leakage to. It was listening to advice such as yours to dump Braverman to win back the 18% has not won a single one of them back, all it has done is seen further leakage to Reform!
Lol: If I thought the Tories were listening to my advice...
Until today I thought it was EXTREMELY unlikely Sunak could face a challenge. But his reshuffle is so obviously catastrophic - and the Rwanda debacle only makes it worse - I believe he is now at risk
I mean: Lord David Cameron. FFS
On the same day you sack a totemic figure of the right, guaranteeing civil war in the party
Two more polls like this and he’s in deep shit. Because, the Tories have nothing to lose. They are facing actual extinction. Under 50 seats
Kick out Sunak put a proper right winger in and go down fighting with, at least, some honour
Can you never just take things in your stride and be calm. There is enough in this world to get excited about or angry about without the constant hyperbola and panic and requirement to post and convince yourself that you are right or have an IQ bigger than everyone here.
Your life must be exhausting. Chill for a bit. Maybe get a dog.
It’s 4am and I’m in a jungle drinking red wine. I’ll do what I like
Where are you?
The rainforest of the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia
Specifically I am in this hotel. A snip at £2154 a night. Luckily I am working for the gazette so on a freebie. It is outstanding
Very nice. I think Cambodia has changed an awful lot over the years, witness "luxury hotels". When were you last there.
Last year - which gave me the idea for this gazette article. Seeing how much Cambodia has changed
My prior visit before that one was in 2008 so yeah, many changes
I first came to Cambodia in the late 1990s when it was still shattered from the Khmer Rouge
Now I am eating the best chocolate granola of my life, it is freshly made and wrapped in a banana leaf
Good book there. I read it last year.
It makes sense of why Maoism has remained popular in so many parts of the world.
Yes, so far so good
The juxtaposition of the book, and the location, and the luxury food item was too photogenic to resist
I’ve also got Frank Dikotter’s “the Cultural Revolution” on audio - so total immersion in the subject
Dikotter is very good on Totalitarianism.
Maoism like Islamism has an appeal that we need to understand if it is to be defeated. An economic system that is endemically corrupt and excludes the poor is very vulnerable to such revolutions, as Chiang and a number of Middle East authoritarians found out.
Social and economic justice are needed for order to be sustained. Otherwise bloody Revolution follows.
Thanks. I am fascinated by Chinese history - so much we don’t know. Will read
I agree on Maoism. It needs to be understood - apparently brutal and violent - yet it has had worldwide appeal. I want to know more
Dan Carlin has done various quite deep dive podcasts on SE.Asia and it's various influences, wars, fall-outs, etc. Worth a bit of background digging :
Until today I thought it was EXTREMELY unlikely Sunak could face a challenge. But his reshuffle is so obviously catastrophic - and the Rwanda debacle only makes it worse - I believe he is now at risk
I mean: Lord David Cameron. FFS
On the same day you sack a totemic figure of the right, guaranteeing civil war in the party
Two more polls like this and he’s in deep shit. Because, the Tories have nothing to lose. They are facing actual extinction. Under 50 seats
Kick out Sunak put a proper right winger in and go down fighting with, at least, some honour
Can you never just take things in your stride and be calm. There is enough in this world to get excited about or angry about without the constant hyperbola and panic and requirement to post and convince yourself that you are right or have an IQ bigger than everyone here.
Your life must be exhausting. Chill for a bit. Maybe get a dog.
It’s 4am and I’m in a jungle drinking red wine. I’ll do what I like
Where are you?
The rainforest of the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia
Specifically I am in this hotel. A snip at £2154 a night. Luckily I am working for the gazette so on a freebie. It is outstanding
Very nice. I think Cambodia has changed an awful lot over the years, witness "luxury hotels". When were you last there.
Last year - which gave me the idea for this gazette article. Seeing how much Cambodia has changed
My prior visit before that one was in 2008 so yeah, many changes
I first came to Cambodia in the late 1990s when it was still shattered from the Khmer Rouge
Now I am eating the best chocolate granola of my life, it is freshly made and wrapped in a banana leaf
Good book there. I read it last year.
It makes sense of why Maoism has remained popular in so many parts of the world.
Yes, so far so good
The juxtaposition of the book, and the location, and the luxury food item was too photogenic to resist
I’ve also got Frank Dikotter’s “the Cultural Revolution” on audio - so total immersion in the subject
Dikotter is very good on Totalitarianism.
Maoism like Islamism has an appeal that we need to understand if it is to be defeated. An economic system that is endemically corrupt and excludes the poor is very vulnerable to such revolutions, as Chiang and a number of Middle East authoritarians found out.
Social and economic justice are needed for order to be sustained. Otherwise bloody Revolution follows.
Thanks. I am fascinated by Chinese history - so much we don’t know. Will read
I agree on Maoism. It needs to be understood - apparently brutal and violent - yet it has had worldwide appeal. I want to know more
In order to make a violent revolution you do need some psychopaths like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Mugabe or Bin Laden, but that isn't enough. You need the support of a wider group of normal people, and the acquiescence of more.
The key to that is ideological mobilisation of the many who have been marginalised and feel no loyalty to the old regime. As Mao pointed out "a revolutionary is a fish that needs a sea to swim in"
So it is too with Hamas.
On the latter point, bollocks. What Hamas needed was pots of money, and powerful allies with a wider geopolitical agenda.
Certainly that helps.
Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, who in many areas of the Middle East are the only providers of education and social support to the poor. They are also far less corrupt than the government's.
Hence the widespread support from the dispossessed. Money helps with those services, but isn't enough on its own. It needs people who believe in the Ummah.
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
Er, what? I’ve said multiple times there’s no way I’m voting Tory in 2024. The sacking of Braverman and appointment of Cameron had only made me more determined to go that way
FWIW I think the inheritance tax thing is pitiful. It will barely do anything. It’s far too late and it’s way too trivial and the optics are awful, with Sunak being a billionaire
Clear?
If you don't mind me asking, how will you vote, or will you abstain?
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
Er, what? I’ve said multiple times there’s no way I’m voting Tory in 2024. The sacking of Braverman and appointment of Cameron had only made me more determined to go that way
FWIW I think the inheritance tax thing is pitiful. It will barely do anything. It’s far too late and it’s way too trivial and the optics are awful, with Sunak being a billionaire
Clear?
If you don't mind me asking, how will you vote, or will you abstain?
Call a ceasefire? Or call for a ceasefire? How many times does it need to be pointed out that a ceasefire involves both sides putting down arms. Is Hamas still firing rockets into Israel? The chances of us influencing Israel on this are close to zero, the chances of influencing Hamas on it must be absolutely zero.
🌹 Lab 46% (+2) 🌳 Con 19% (-4) 🔶 Lib Dem 9% (-1) ➡️ Reform 10% (+2) 🌍 Greens 8% (+1) 🎗️ SNP 5% (+1)
Imagine the clamor to bring Boris back if he was still in Parliament lol!
The abacus at Electoral Calculus is going to blow up.
No it's still working. LDs are the Official Opposition on those figures, new boundaries 25% tactical voting:
(Note: I can't put SNP % in without doing a full Scottish prediction, so it's defaulted to 4%)
Perhaps Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party?
Who knows?
The Tories' big challenge, to which no one yet seems to have found the answer, is to change this relentless trend:
That is quite a trend. It does point inexorably to a ~20-25% result at the GE (or even worse) - and total electoral oblivion
Should also be pointed out the Conservative average poll rating in the days before Boris resigned as PM was more than the combined Tory and Reform vote in tonight's and last night's polls and about 10-15% more than the polls in the days before Truss resigned as PM too.
It was Tory MPs who decided to get rid of Boris NOT Tory members and it is Tory MPs who will face the punishment for that, on the latest polls over half of them, maybe even 3/4 of them, will lose their seats.
If that is the case you can be assured Tory members will pick the most hardline rightwinger they can find as leader in Opposition to win back voters lost to Reform, they would even pick Farage if they had the chance
Every vote you gain from Reform will cost two to the LDs/Labour.
No it won't, the 19% now still voting Tory would still vote Tory no matter what. It is the 10%+ now voting Reform he has to win back first, forget voters gone Labour/LD for now, his first task is to get the Conservative voteshare back from under 20% to around 30%
The Brexit Party got 2% in the 2019 GE, safe to say those votes have gone to Reform.
So only 8% max or the 2019 44.7% (GB) has leaked from the Tories to Reform.
Where has the other 18% gone?
Neither of the polls reporting the Tories on 19% appear to have published their tables yet.
However, the YouGov on 8 Nov which had the Tories on 23%, which was their lowest recent share before today, split the 2019GE Con vote as:
If the Tories continue to sink lower in the polls, I think we do need to consider the possibility that a splinter group actually sets up their own party (or joins Reform).
If you’re facing annihilation, at what point does the Tory brand stop being useful to characters like Braverman, Boris, Patel? At what point do they go “sod it” and just go their own way? Maybe with… whisper it, Farage?
I think it is possible this could happen now, if things continue to be… sub optimal… for the government.
Until today I thought it was EXTREMELY unlikely Sunak could face a challenge. But his reshuffle is so obviously catastrophic - and the Rwanda debacle only makes it worse - I believe he is now at risk
I mean: Lord David Cameron. FFS
On the same day you sack a totemic figure of the right, guaranteeing civil war in the party
Two more polls like this and he’s in deep shit. Because, the Tories have nothing to lose. They are facing actual extinction. Under 50 seats
Kick out Sunak put a proper right winger in and go down fighting with, at least, some honour
Can you never just take things in your stride and be calm. There is enough in this world to get excited about or angry about without the constant hyperbola and panic and requirement to post and convince yourself that you are right or have an IQ bigger than everyone here.
Your life must be exhausting. Chill for a bit. Maybe get a dog.
It’s 4am and I’m in a jungle drinking red wine. I’ll do what I like
Where are you?
The rainforest of the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia
Specifically I am in this hotel. A snip at £2154 a night. Luckily I am working for the gazette so on a freebie. It is outstanding
Very nice. I think Cambodia has changed an awful lot over the years, witness "luxury hotels". When were you last there.
Last year - which gave me the idea for this gazette article. Seeing how much Cambodia has changed
My prior visit before that one was in 2008 so yeah, many changes
I first came to Cambodia in the late 1990s when it was still shattered from the Khmer Rouge
Now I am eating the best chocolate granola of my life, it is freshly made and wrapped in a banana leaf
Good book there. I read it last year.
It makes sense of why Maoism has remained popular in so many parts of the world.
Yes, so far so good
The juxtaposition of the book, and the location, and the luxury food item was too photogenic to resist
I’ve also got Frank Dikotter’s “the Cultural Revolution” on audio - so total immersion in the subject
Dikotter is very good on Totalitarianism.
Maoism like Islamism has an appeal that we need to understand if it is to be defeated. An economic system that is endemically corrupt and excludes the poor is very vulnerable to such revolutions, as Chiang and a number of Middle East authoritarians found out.
Social and economic justice are needed for order to be sustained. Otherwise bloody Revolution follows.
Thanks. I am fascinated by Chinese history - so much we don’t know. Will read
I agree on Maoism. It needs to be understood - apparently brutal and violent - yet it has had worldwide appeal. I want to know more
In order to make a violent revolution you do need some psychopaths like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Mugabe or Bin Laden, but that isn't enough. You need the support of a wider group of normal people, and the acquiescence of more.
The key to that is ideological mobilisation of the many who have been marginalised and feel no loyalty to the old regime. As Mao pointed out "a revolutionary is a fish that needs a sea to swim in"
So it is too with Hamas.
On the latter point, bollocks. What Hamas needed was pots of money, and powerful allies with a wider geopolitical agenda.
Certainly that helps.
Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, who in many areas of the Middle East are the only providers of education and social support to the poor. They are also far less corrupt than the government's.
Hence the widespread support from the dispossessed. Money helps with those services, but isn't enough on its own. It needs people who believe in the Ummah.
The lack of corruption in Hamas appears to be a myth. The leadership have been living opulent lives in the Gulf, quite shamelessly, and levels of extortion in Gaza have elevated government to the level of protection racket.
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
Er, what? I’ve said multiple times there’s no way I’m voting Tory in 2024. The sacking of Braverman and appointment of Cameron had only made me more determined to go that way
FWIW I think the inheritance tax thing is pitiful. It will barely do anything. It’s far too late and it’s way too trivial and the optics are awful, with Sunak being a billionaire
Clear?
If you don't mind me asking, how will you vote, or will you abstain?
Abstain or Labour
Given it's Camden and you have lots of candidates, wouldn't 13 penises be more fun on the ballot paper?
Given my options are likely to be Jason Zadrozny, Lee Anderson, someone for Labour and *maybe* a LibDem, I'm thinking about ordering one of these cock & balls stamps:
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
Er, what? I’ve said multiple times there’s no way I’m voting Tory in 2024. The sacking of Braverman and appointment of Cameron had only made me more determined to go that way
FWIW I think the inheritance tax thing is pitiful. It will barely do anything. It’s far too late and it’s way too trivial and the optics are awful, with Sunak being a billionaire
Clear?
Not really. What I still fail to grasp is why, as a Labour supporter, you are so aggrieved at the discomfort being experienced by your opponents. This is politics: it’s a big boys’ game!
🌹 Lab 46% (+2) 🌳 Con 19% (-4) 🔶 Lib Dem 9% (-1) ➡️ Reform 10% (+2) 🌍 Greens 8% (+1) 🎗️ SNP 5% (+1)
Imagine the clamor to bring Boris back if he was still in Parliament lol!
The abacus at Electoral Calculus is going to blow up.
No it's still working. LDs are the Official Opposition on those figures, new boundaries 25% tactical voting:
(Note: I can't put SNP % in without doing a full Scottish prediction, so it's defaulted to 4%)
Perhaps Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party?
Who knows?
The Tories' big challenge, to which no one yet seems to have found the answer, is to change this relentless trend:
That is quite a trend. It does point inexorably to a ~20-25% result at the GE (or even worse) - and total electoral oblivion
Should also be pointed out the Conservative average poll rating in the days before Boris resigned as PM was more than the combined Tory and Reform vote in tonight's and last night's polls and about 10-15% more than the polls in the days before Truss resigned as PM too.
It was Tory MPs who decided to get rid of Boris NOT Tory members and it is Tory MPs who will face the punishment for that, on the latest polls over half of them, maybe even 3/4 of them, will lose their seats.
If that is the case you can be assured Tory members will pick the most hardline rightwinger they can find as leader in Opposition to win back voters lost to Reform, they would even pick Farage if they had the chance
Every vote you gain from Reform will cost two to the LDs/Labour.
No it won't, the 19% now still voting Tory would still vote Tory no matter what. It is the 10%+ now voting Reform he has to win back first, forget voters gone Labour/LD for now, his first task is to get the Conservative voteshare back from under 20% to around 30%
The Brexit Party got 2% in the 2019 GE, safe to say those votes have gone to Reform.
So only 8% max or the 2019 44.7% (GB) has leaked from the Tories to Reform.
Where has the other 18% gone?
Neither of the polls reporting the Tories on 19% appear to have published their tables yet.
However, the YouGov on 8 Nov which had the Tories on 23%, which was their lowest recent share before today, split the 2019GE Con vote as:
For comparison, 74% of 2019 Lab voters remain with their party, with only 12% DK/WNV/Refused.
So the Tories have leaked far more to RefUK and DK since 2019 than Labour and the LDs anyway
Well, yes. But they've also leaked a *lot* more to DK and Lab/LD than to Reform.
If you're going to start combining shares there are lots of ways to do it. Personally, I'd go:
Con 38 Lab+LD+Grn 17 RefUK 11 Oth 2 DK+WNV+Refd 33
More of the 2019 Con vote has gone left than right but more has just dropped off altogether than has defected to another party.
That said, winning any of them back will be hard. For one thing, I'm not convinced that these Reform voters are real. They're consistently showing up in polls at a higher share than in real elections; many are closer to abstainers in practice - but abstainers who are nonetheless disillusioned with the Tories. We shouldn't be surprised by this. No small number of first-time Tory voters in 2019 were first-time voters overall (other than, perhaps, the Brexit referendum).
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
Er, what? I’ve said multiple times there’s no way I’m voting Tory in 2024. The sacking of Braverman and appointment of Cameron had only made me more determined to go that way
FWIW I think the inheritance tax thing is pitiful. It will barely do anything. It’s far too late and it’s way too trivial and the optics are awful, with Sunak being a billionaire
Clear?
If you don't mind me asking, how will you vote, or will you abstain?
Abstain or Labour
Given it's Camden and you have lots of candidates, wouldn't 13 penises be more fun on the ballot paper?
Given my options are likely to be Jason Zadrozny, Lee Anderson, someone for Labour and *maybe* a LibDem, I'm thinking about ordering one of these cock & balls stamps:
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
Er, what? I’ve said multiple times there’s no way I’m voting Tory in 2024. The sacking of Braverman and appointment of Cameron had only made me more determined to go that way
FWIW I think the inheritance tax thing is pitiful. It will barely do anything. It’s far too late and it’s way too trivial and the optics are awful, with Sunak being a billionaire
Clear?
If you don't mind me asking, how will you vote, or will you abstain?
Abstain or Labour
Given it's Camden and you have lots of candidates, wouldn't 13 penises be more fun on the ballot paper?
Given my options are likely to be Jason Zadrozny, Lee Anderson, someone for Labour and *maybe* a LibDem, I'm thinking about ordering one of these cock & balls stamps:
Until today I thought it was EXTREMELY unlikely Sunak could face a challenge. But his reshuffle is so obviously catastrophic - and the Rwanda debacle only makes it worse - I believe he is now at risk
I mean: Lord David Cameron. FFS
On the same day you sack a totemic figure of the right, guaranteeing civil war in the party
Two more polls like this and he’s in deep shit. Because, the Tories have nothing to lose. They are facing actual extinction. Under 50 seats
Kick out Sunak put a proper right winger in and go down fighting with, at least, some honour
Can you never just take things in your stride and be calm. There is enough in this world to get excited about or angry about without the constant hyperbola and panic and requirement to post and convince yourself that you are right or have an IQ bigger than everyone here.
Your life must be exhausting. Chill for a bit. Maybe get a dog.
It’s 4am and I’m in a jungle drinking red wine. I’ll do what I like
Where are you?
The rainforest of the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia
Specifically I am in this hotel. A snip at £2154 a night. Luckily I am working for the gazette so on a freebie. It is outstanding
Very nice. I think Cambodia has changed an awful lot over the years, witness "luxury hotels". When were you last there.
Last year - which gave me the idea for this gazette article. Seeing how much Cambodia has changed
My prior visit before that one was in 2008 so yeah, many changes
I first came to Cambodia in the late 1990s when it was still shattered from the Khmer Rouge
Now I am eating the best chocolate granola of my life, it is freshly made and wrapped in a banana leaf
Good book there. I read it last year.
It makes sense of why Maoism has remained popular in so many parts of the world.
Yes, so far so good
The juxtaposition of the book, and the location, and the luxury food item was too photogenic to resist
I’ve also got Frank Dikotter’s “the Cultural Revolution” on audio - so total immersion in the subject
Dikotter is very good on Totalitarianism.
Maoism like Islamism has an appeal that we need to understand if it is to be defeated. An economic system that is endemically corrupt and excludes the poor is very vulnerable to such revolutions, as Chiang and a number of Middle East authoritarians found out.
Social and economic justice are needed for order to be sustained. Otherwise bloody Revolution follows.
Thanks. I am fascinated by Chinese history - so much we don’t know. Will read
I agree on Maoism. It needs to be understood - apparently brutal and violent - yet it has had worldwide appeal. I want to know more
In order to make a violent revolution you do need some psychopaths like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Mugabe or Bin Laden, but that isn't enough. You need the support of a wider group of normal people, and the acquiescence of more.
The key to that is ideological mobilisation of the many who have been marginalised and feel no loyalty to the old regime. As Mao pointed out "a revolutionary is a fish that needs a sea to swim in"
So it is too with Hamas.
On the latter point, bollocks. What Hamas needed was pots of money, and powerful allies with a wider geopolitical agenda.
Certainly that helps.
Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, who in many areas of the Middle East are the only providers of education and social support to the poor. They are also far less corrupt than the government's.
Hence the widespread support from the dispossessed. Money helps with those services, but isn't enough on its own. It needs people who believe in the Ummah.
"Far less corrupt than the Governments" is an odd claim to make (and also the lowest of low bars). The overall leaders of Hamas are billionaires living in luxury hotels in Qatar, and the local leaders in Gaza are worth millions, having creamed off commissions from all the international aid flooding into the region over the course of years or decades. Yasser Arafat died leaving hundreds of millions in Swiss bank accounts.
Anyway, Hamas' control of Gaza is based much more on fear than populism. Greater Israeli presence in the West Bank is the main reason the PA have remained in control over the West Bank - else Hamas would almost certainly have used the same bullying tactics to take over there by now.
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
There is one already: Respect. They did get a seat at one stage I remember but didn’t hold on to it particularly long.
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
Jordan Tyldesley: It’s a really big thing that we have British politicians walking away from their duties due to sectarian pressure in their constituencies about a war that has got nothing to do with us. A war between our ally and a terrorist group. Begging you to see how significant this is.
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
Er, what? I’ve said multiple times there’s no way I’m voting Tory in 2024. The sacking of Braverman and appointment of Cameron had only made me more determined to go that way
FWIW I think the inheritance tax thing is pitiful. It will barely do anything. It’s far too late and it’s way too trivial and the optics are awful, with Sunak being a billionaire
Clear?
If you don't mind me asking, how will you vote, or will you abstain?
Abstain or Labour
Given it's Camden and you have lots of candidates, wouldn't 13 penises be more fun on the ballot paper?
Given my options are likely to be Jason Zadrozny, Lee Anderson, someone for Labour and *maybe* a LibDem, I'm thinking about ordering one of these cock & balls stamps:
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
Jordan Tyldesley: It’s a really big thing that we have British politicians walking away from their duties due to sectarian pressure in their constituencies about a war that has got nothing to do with us. A war between our ally and a terrorist group. Begging you to see how significant this is.
“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays you instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
There is one already: Respect. They did get a seat at one stage I remember but didn’t hold on to it particularly long.
I think there is a similar one called Aspire, which runs Tower Hamlets maybe?
The conditions are there for such a party to flourish now - councillors in regions with big Muslim populations are quitting Labour, but they are unlikely to give up on the power they have; same will go for MPs as well I would think, it seems inevitable
If the Tories continue to sink lower in the polls, I think we do need to consider the possibility that a splinter group actually sets up their own party (or joins Reform).
If you’re facing annihilation, at what point does the Tory brand stop being useful to characters like Braverman, Boris, Patel? At what point do they go “sod it” and just go their own way? Maybe with… whisper it, Farage?
I think it is possible this could happen now, if things continue to be… sub optimal… for the government.
We've been in this situation before, at the 2019 Euro election when the Tories polled 8.8%.
I imagine this may go unnoticed outside Poland, so I`d like to give heads up to all of you interested in the rather never officially undisclosed/confirmed circumstances around the beginning of the full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine from Polish perspective (mainly).
Just recently a book came out titled "Polska na wojnie" (eng. Poland at war) which is a mash up of interviews that the author (journalist Zbigniew Parafianowicz) made with several high ranking members of Polish government and presidential office, as well as army/special service officers, with some additional comments from their Ukrainian counterparts. They all remain anonymous, from obvious reasons, but the story checks out with what we`ve learned in the past.
Anyway, it surely made a splash here (🇵🇱), because it's full of spicy details (for a Polish and possibly Ukrainian readers) but there are some, that may be interesting for everybody else.
The talk is about the onset of coming war and the following months and gives some very interesting insight into the backstage, and especially - Polish-Ukrainian relations and cooperation. Below a couple of quotes from the book as reference (throw it into google translator), but I`ll give you some of the interesting snippets... https://twitter.com/FilippDM/status/1724171496552063182
The point towards the end about recently strained Polish/Ukrainian relations (see also the current lorry drivers dispute which has blocked the border to goods) is underreported by U.K. journalists.
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
Er, what? I’ve said multiple times there’s no way I’m voting Tory in 2024. The sacking of Braverman and appointment of Cameron had only made me more determined to go that way
FWIW I think the inheritance tax thing is pitiful. It will barely do anything. It’s far too late and it’s way too trivial and the optics are awful, with Sunak being a billionaire
Clear?
If you don't mind me asking, how will you vote, or will you abstain?
Abstain or Labour
Given it's Camden and you have lots of candidates, wouldn't 13 penises be more fun on the ballot paper?
Given my options are likely to be Jason Zadrozny, Lee Anderson, someone for Labour and *maybe* a LibDem, I'm thinking about ordering one of these cock & balls stamps:
Write something amusing for the count and the agents to mull over. I put a limerick on a ballot I spoiled in 2021.
At least you weren't in South West Surrey, then a limerick could have been awkward.
There was a young voter from Surrey Who sketched a cock in a hurry The cock was long A great big schlong! Which made the vote counter worry.
South West Surrey is home to a voter Who spoils his ballot with scrota And several large cockses Spanning various boxes Which identifies him as a floater
She wants to vote for "an immediate bilateral ceasefire", but also for "getting Hamas out of Gaza".
Two more mutually contradictory positions, you would struggle to find.
She spits the word 'Hamas' out though.
I've no doubt she utterly despises Hamas, and given her family connections, I can't blame her for being conflicted on the issue. However, it is an absolute fact that there are only two groups that can "get Hamas out of Gaza": one being the Israeli army, and the other being Iran and its allies. Given the latter is a complete non-starter, her position as stated is simply absurd.
If the Tories continue to sink lower in the polls, I think we do need to consider the possibility that a splinter group actually sets up their own party (or joins Reform).
If you’re facing annihilation, at what point does the Tory brand stop being useful to characters like Braverman, Boris, Patel? At what point do they go “sod it” and just go their own way? Maybe with… whisper it, Farage?
I think it is possible this could happen now, if things continue to be… sub optimal… for the government.
We've been in this situation before, at the 2019 Euro election when the Tories polled 8.8%.
Inconceivable things seem to happen more often than I used to think they would, but it is surely inconceivable for Farage to jump through all the hoops he would need to in order to become Tory leader?
Boris returning seems much more likely, and he has a great back story now to appeal as an outsider - voted in by the public, removed by the establishment. As old as the hills, but a great thing to have up your sleeve
*A group of Tory MPs met at the 5 Hertford Street private members club in Mayfair this week where they agreed to send no confidence letters in Rishi Sunak and try to coordinate more from colleagues in a plot to remove the prime minister*
That shows just how out of touch they are: 5 Hertford Street hasn't been cool since about 2016.
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
Jordan Tyldesley: It’s a really big thing that we have British politicians walking away from their duties due to sectarian pressure in their constituencies about a war that has got nothing to do with us. A war between our ally and a terrorist group. Begging you to see how significant this is.
For me, the most interesting recent political development in Cambodia is this one: "PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Hun Sen has been Cambodia’s autocratic prime minister for nearly four decades, during which the opposition has been stifled and the country has grown increasingly close to China.
With his Cambodian People’s Party virtually guaranteed another landslide victory in Sunday’s election, it’s hard to imagine dramatic change on the horizon. But the 70-year-old former communist Khmer Rouge fighter and Asia's longest-serving leader says he is ready to hand the premiership to his oldest son, Hun Manet, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who heads the country's army." source: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/07/23/cambodian-leaders-son-west-point-grad-set-take-reins-of-power-will-he-bring-change.html
By the way, in my quick search I learned that other members of the Cambodian regime have also trained at our military academies. (Scholarships for them apparently ended in 2021.)
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
Jordan Tyldesley: It’s a really big thing that we have British politicians walking away from their duties due to sectarian pressure in their constituencies about a war that has got nothing to do with us. A war between our ally and a terrorist group. Begging you to see how significant this is.
“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays you instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
Edmund Burke
A noble and correct sentiment, although how did that work out for Burke?
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
Jordan Tyldesley: It’s a really big thing that we have British politicians walking away from their duties due to sectarian pressure in their constituencies about a war that has got nothing to do with us. A war between our ally and a terrorist group. Begging you to see how significant this is.
I suppose what she should say is “ It’s a really big thing that we have British politicians walking away from their duties due to sectarian pressure in their constituencies to back a terrorist group against one of our allies. Begging you to see how significant this is.”
I suppose it happened before with Labour lefties backing the IRA?
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
Jordan Tyldesley: It’s a really big thing that we have British politicians walking away from their duties due to sectarian pressure in their constituencies about a war that has got nothing to do with us. A war between our ally and a terrorist group. Begging you to see how significant this is.
*A group of Tory MPs met at the 5 Hertford Street private members club in Mayfair this week where they agreed to send no confidence letters in Rishi Sunak and try to coordinate more from colleagues in a plot to remove the prime minister*
Good for them if they do it, we don't get enough of politicians following through on their gripes, instead usually just moping about them in off the record briefings and whinges. It got so bad at times under Corbyn and Boris that it was just frustrating that so few were a) open about it and b) actually doing something.
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
Jordan Tyldesley: It’s a really big thing that we have British politicians walking away from their duties due to sectarian pressure in their constituencies about a war that has got nothing to do with us. A war between our ally and a terrorist group. Begging you to see how significant this is.
Do any of the wars in former French colonies that our allies, the French, tend to get involved with?
What about Saudi Arabia's involvement in the Yemen? Or if they actually declared war on Qatar or Iran?
We do tend to be pretty inconsistent about these matters. There's zero hope of consistent involvement in foreign affairs or what bits the public and parties will or will not be interested in or think we should be involved in, so pretty much anything could be dismissed as not our business or stated as actually pretty vital to anyone globally.
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
Even if you thought that it's a good idea — it isn't — thinking it's a good idea right now is really nuts. Sunak appears to be politically a total numpty.
It's the only thing they've got - costs less than fixing the insane flaws in our tax system...
plus HYUFD (who alongside Leon) appears to be the sole members of the focus groups the tory party is using will have orgasms over a reduction in inheritance tax..
Er, what? I’ve said multiple times there’s no way I’m voting Tory in 2024. The sacking of Braverman and appointment of Cameron had only made me more determined to go that way
FWIW I think the inheritance tax thing is pitiful. It will barely do anything. It’s far too late and it’s way too trivial and the optics are awful, with Sunak being a billionaire
Clear?
If you don't mind me asking, how will you vote, or will you abstain?
Abstain or Labour
Given it's Camden and you have lots of candidates, wouldn't 13 penises be more fun on the ballot paper?
Given my options are likely to be Jason Zadrozny, Lee Anderson, someone for Labour and *maybe* a LibDem, I'm thinking about ordering one of these cock & balls stamps:
Write something amusing for the count and the agents to mull over. I put a limerick on a ballot I spoiled in 2021.
I do like a creative bit of writing or drawing on a ballot. Surprising numbers of even veteran election watchers think it spoils your ballot (or even something like a tick instead of a cross spoiling it), but that's generally not the case.
One I had once clearly the voter was worried it might spoil the ballot, so they instead stuck a post it note absolutely filled with text to the slip instead, which I presume they filled out before going to the polling station. Good on them for the extra effort.
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
There is one already: Respect. They did get a seat at one stage I remember but didn’t hold on to it particularly long.
I think there is a similar one called Aspire, which runs Tower Hamlets maybe?
Good old corrupt Lutfur Rahman.
I'm not generally a fan of really long or total sentences, but when it comes to committing election fraud and other election offences I do feel that should in itself mean a permanent ban on hold elected office ever again. Having committed corrupt electoral practices once I don't see why you should get another go.
🌹 Lab 46% (+2) 🌳 Con 19% (-4) 🔶 Lib Dem 9% (-1) ➡️ Reform 10% (+2) 🌍 Greens 8% (+1) 🎗️ SNP 5% (+1)
Imagine the clamor to bring Boris back if he was still in Parliament lol!
The abacus at Electoral Calculus is going to blow up.
No it's still working. LDs are the Official Opposition on those figures, new boundaries 25% tactical voting:
(Note: I can't put SNP % in without doing a full Scottish prediction, so it's defaulted to 4%)
Perhaps Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party?
Who knows?
The Tories' big challenge, to which no one yet seems to have found the answer, is to change this relentless trend:
That "relentless" trend is an artefact of your imagination. The shifts in support have been created by a succession of separate events. The common underlying cause perhaps being the rupture in the party that Boris Johnson created to "Get Brexit Done", but it does not mean that it is a trend that is bound to continue.
Of course I know that, my tongue is firmly in my cheek.
No, you’re right. That is a definite trend - nightmarish as it may be for right wingers like me - it is there
This is hilarious.
Ok. So you don’t think the Tories are trending down. It’s just a sequence of unfortunate events, meaning nothing. Tomorrow they’ll be polling 43% again. Got it
Duh. That's not what I mean.
Given the Tories are currently in the twenties, at best, it would take a series of unlikely events to move their support back up to 43%.
My contention is that relative support for parties is static, in the absence of anything to change it.
Events and actions over the next year might increase Tory support, or they may depress it further. To some extent that depends on what the Tories do, and to some extent it depends on events outside of their control. There's no underlying force that is continuing to act to continue the apparent trend.
I find it hilarious that you are unable to grasp this simple relationship between cause and effect, and yet you are always self-identifying as the smartest person in the room.
The 'trend' is really a trend in self-harm on the part of the Tories. No sooner does one calamity or scandal knock their ratings down a percent or two than they create another. In that sense, unless the Tories can change their general competence, they may be likely to drift down further.
Certainly they do appear to have failed to stop the rot, Trussites can understandably feed pretty aggrieved.
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
Jordan Tyldesley: It’s a really big thing that we have British politicians walking away from their duties due to sectarian pressure in their constituencies about a war that has got nothing to do with us. A war between our ally and a terrorist group. Begging you to see how significant this is.
I suppose what she should say is “ It’s a really big thing that we have British politicians walking away from their duties due to sectarian pressure in their constituencies to back a terrorist group against one of our allies. Begging you to see how significant this is.”
I suppose it happened before with Labour lefties backing the IRA?
Indeed.
And part of the problem here is that there's not a lot of nuance.
So, if the question is:
On x November, Hamas fighters invaded Israel from Gaza, killing around 1,500 people and taking a further 200 Israeli civilians hostages in tunnels below Gaza City. Is it morally justifiable for the Israelis to send in troops to rescue those hostages?
And I would hope the vast majority of people would side with Israel.
If, on the other hand, you were to ask a question about Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank, I would suspect people would be a great deal less supportive of Israel.
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
Jordan Tyldesley: It’s a really big thing that we have British politicians walking away from their duties due to sectarian pressure in their constituencies about a war that has got nothing to do with us. A war between our ally and a terrorist group. Begging you to see how significant this is.
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
Jordan Tyldesley: It’s a really big thing that we have British politicians walking away from their duties due to sectarian pressure in their constituencies about a war that has got nothing to do with us. A war between our ally and a terrorist group. Begging you to see how significant this is.
I suppose what she should say is “ It’s a really big thing that we have British politicians walking away from their duties due to sectarian pressure in their constituencies to back a terrorist group against one of our allies. Begging you to see how significant this is.”
I suppose it happened before with Labour lefties backing the IRA?
Indeed.
And part of the problem here is that there's not a lot of nuance.
So, if the question is:
On x November, Hamas fighters invaded Israel from Gaza, killing around 1,500 people
If the Tories continue to sink lower in the polls, I think we do need to consider the possibility that a splinter group actually sets up their own party (or joins Reform).
If you’re facing annihilation, at what point does the Tory brand stop being useful to characters like Braverman, Boris, Patel? At what point do they go “sod it” and just go their own way? Maybe with… whisper it, Farage?
I think it is possible this could happen now, if things continue to be… sub optimal… for the government.
We've been in this situation before, at the 2019 Euro election when the Tories polled 8.8%.
During the early 1960s the UK tried to develop weapon systems like Bluestreak (a IRBM? standoff missile?) and TSR2 (a do-anything aircraft). The US offered alternatives like Skybolt and F1-11s. The UK said OK and cancelled the projects, at which point the US went nah-nah-nah and withdrew them. The bad blood engendered between Johnson/McNamara and Wilson has been suggested as the reason why UK stayed out of Vietnam
For me, the most interesting recent political development in Cambodia is this one: "PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Hun Sen has been Cambodia’s autocratic prime minister for nearly four decades, during which the opposition has been stifled and the country has grown increasingly close to China.
With his Cambodian People’s Party virtually guaranteed another landslide victory in Sunday’s election, it’s hard to imagine dramatic change on the horizon. But the 70-year-old former communist Khmer Rouge fighter and Asia's longest-serving leader says he is ready to hand the premiership to his oldest son, Hun Manet, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who heads the country's army." source: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/07/23/cambodian-leaders-son-west-point-grad-set-take-reins-of-power-will-he-bring-change.html
By the way, in my quick search I learned that other members of the Cambodian regime have also trained at our military academies. (Scholarships for them apparently ended in 2021.)
Anything similar in the UK?
Lots of foreign leaders have trained at Sandhurst over the years IIRC, (the British military academy).
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
That's what's happened in Israel. Every nutter has formed a party which is how they end up with a dangerous fascist like Ben-Gvir as Minister of Homeland Security. They even had a Party dedicated to Baruch Goldstein at one time before it was proscribed.
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I think if the story stays with Muslim MPs and voters abandoning Labour then SKS should easily shake it off. It makes it a factional story, rather than a more deep rooted rebellion. That’s where the Jess Phillips resignation is surprising. But I assume she has a lot of Muslim constituents.
Yes Sir Keir (they called him that a few times on BBC News at Ten tonight) can probably afford to lose them, but a few years down the line this will be a sea change in English politics - a party, winning seats in parliament, that is solely concerned with the views and demands of a religion and it’s adherents
That's what's happened in Israel. Every nutter has formed a party which is how they end up with a dangerous fascist like Ben-Gvir as Minister of Homeland Security. They even had a Party dedicated to Baruch Goldstein at one time before it was proscribed.
Yes, and that's definitely a danger. But even that's still infinitely(*) better than the system in Gaza, isn't it? A terrorist theocracy that denies its people elections, and attacks a neighbour it wants to wipe out.
During the early 1960s the UK tried to develop weapon systems like Bluestreak (a IRBM? standoff missile?) and TSR2 (a do-anything aircraft). The US offered alternatives like Skybolt and F1-11s. The UK said OK and cancelled the projects, at which point the US went nah-nah-nah and withdrew them. The bad blood engendered between Johnson/McNamara and Wilson has been suggested as the reason why UK stayed out of Vietnam
They probably did us a favour, making us cancel expensive and flawed systems, then refusing us other expensive and flawed ones.
A significant foreign policy mistake. We should have taken part, bolstered the western effort, and won the damn thing.
It was a unwinnable war. And what's certain is that lack of military capacity on the part of the US had nothing to do with their not 'winning' it.
Or were you being sarcastic ?
Actually, the US could have fully mobilised for war and moved to a war economy - it never did - and flooded Vietnam with troops.
Even at its height whilst the US had a lot of troops it wasn't enough to do much more than guard airbases and ports, supply depots, key strategic points and cities, and launch search & destroy missions en masse. Which the NVA/Vietcong simply reoccupied after.
But, had it pumped in everything it got? It could have stabilised it but at enormous cost - men, material, treasure and political.
A significant foreign policy mistake. We should have taken part, bolstered the western effort, and won the damn thing.
It was a unwinnable war. And what's certain is that lack of military capacity on the part of the US had nothing to do with their not 'winning' it.
Or were you being sarcastic ?
Actually, the US could have fully mobilised for war and moved to a war economy - it never did - and flooded Vietnam with troops.
Even at its height whilst the US had a lot of troops it wasn't enough to do much more than guard airbases and ports, supply depots, key strategic points and cities, and launch search & destroy missions en masse. Which the NVA/Vietcong simply reoccupied after.
But, had it pumped in everything it got? It could have stabilised it but at enormous cost - men, material, treasure and political.
As I said, lack of capacity wasn't the problem.
The Vietnam was was costly enough as it was. Bankrupting the country to pursue a colonial project in a hostile nation that size - nothing short of a full occupation would have sufficed - would have been utterly pointless.
The idea that UK participation would have made any difference is equally nuts.
Refuse to fund NHS recovery, and make life harder for disabled people, in order to do something for the richest 5% of households who pay Inheritance Tax.
That'll help.
19% is going to be a high water marker for Tory voters in future polling...
Reduced Inheritance tax is really going to help people seeing 70%+ rates of tax as they hit the £50,000 and £100,000 wage barriers.
For reference I quit a contract this week because if I worked one more day I hit that magic £100,000 point - it simply wasn't worth the stress for pittance I would have got for the next 2 months..
That £100k cliff, along with the new IR35 rules, are killing the professional consultancy market. It makes no sense for the government to be actively encouraging people not to work.
A significant foreign policy mistake. We should have taken part, bolstered the western effort, and won the damn thing.
It was a unwinnable war. And what's certain is that lack of military capacity on the part of the US had nothing to do with their not 'winning' it.
Or were you being sarcastic ?
Actually, the US could have fully mobilised for war and moved to a war economy - it never did - and flooded Vietnam with troops.
Even at its height whilst the US had a lot of troops it wasn't enough to do much more than guard airbases and ports, supply depots, key strategic points and cities, and launch search & destroy missions en masse. Which the NVA/Vietcong simply reoccupied after.
But, had it pumped in everything it got? It could have stabilised it but at enormous cost - men, material, treasure and political.
Whereas in practice it failed to stabilise it - at enormous cost.
Watching BBC News at 10, they covered this story then cut to a Muslim who previously voted Labour but now is looking to vote for ‘an independent’ who is more representative of his views…
That Islamic party is coming soon, with plenty of disaffected councillors and maybe a couple of MPs ready to get involved. An absolute disaster for the country
I can definitely foresee a record low two-party share of the vote, on a low turnout, at the election, especially if a Labour win looks obvious.
On the left, there’s going to be a high Green vote, and groups such as Lutfur Rhaman’s mob (Respect, Aspire?) running in areas of high Muslim populations.
On the right, we have Reform polling up to 10% and intending to stand everywhere in GB, and there’s also likely to be, if not Tommy Robinson and his mob, then someone a little softer such as Carl Benjamin standing candidates in WWC “red wall” towns.
In the UK the right cant get its act together, in France its the Left. Yet more splits in Melenchon's alliance and the Communists say theyre taking their ball home.
Comments
https://www.kingsleynapley.co.uk/our-news/press-releases/yougov-poll-shows-majority-of-public-now-supports-scrapping-iht-and-even-a-majority-of-labour-voters-oppose-raising-the-current-40-iht-rate
It's only ~30k estates that pay iHT. each year, which is not even a rounding error in numbers.
And Rishi will probably have most of those anyway.
It's like him thinking that he can squeeze much electoral advantage out of the 1.5-2% of people in London directly affected by ULEZ.
It's a tiny group, and the even tinier number he has, he has anyway.
They are playing the 1980s violin when we have a National Debt ballooned by all the recent PMs, and Rishi studiously ignoring a ~£100bn annual deficit. Since it's past the watershed, I'll say that I have never seen anyone pissing quite so profusely on his own political grave before.
It would be better spent dealing with "Brown Bulge" 70% tax rate, though that could equally be done in a cost neutral manner. I wonder if they think of that one?
So only 8% max or the 2019 44.7% (GB) has leaked from the Tories to Reform.
Where has the other 18% gone?
As a statement of intent it shows that he is in control of his party, and while there is a small rebellion, his Labour is a fundamentally different proposition to Corbyn's Labour.
Expect some of the people who have resigned to return before too long.
Correctly identifying one can make money - hence this site. @Benpointer’s graph and his trend line is, at the very least, worth looking at - and may well be indicative
I am NOT surprised you don’t get this seeing as you were - I believe - one of the morons cheering Sunak’s “genius reshuffle”
voting Tory in 2024. The sacking of Braverman and appointment of Cameron had only made me more determined to go that way
FWIW I think the inheritance tax thing is pitiful. It will barely do anything. It’s far too late and it’s way too trivial and the optics are awful, with Sunak being a billionaire
Clear?
However, the YouGov on 8 Nov which had the Tories on 23%, which was their lowest recent share before today, split the 2019GE Con vote as:
Con 38
Lab 11
Ref 11
LD 3
Grn 3
Oth 2
DK 23
WNV 8
Refused 2
For comparison, 74% of 2019 Lab voters remain with their party, with only 12% DK/WNV/Refused.
The 8% are the ones who need to be won back not see further leakage to. It was listening to advice such as yours to dump Braverman to win back the 18% has not won a single one of them back, all it has done is seen further leakage to Reform!
The key to that is ideological mobilisation of the many who have been marginalised and feel no loyalty to the old regime. As Mao pointed out "a revolutionary is a fish that needs a sea to swim in"
So it is too with Hamas.
Recently after a security audit we had X-points of 'critical' security vulnerability and X++ points of "medium" vulnerabilities. Managements decided we should focus on the medium ones first as it made the headline number go down quicker - damn the criticality.
I can well imagine Rishi being presented with an Excel graph showing 'biggest numbers of things people care about' and having inheritance tax or whatever at the top.
It's one area of tax predicted to increase revenue anyway over the next 10 years as wealth concentrates more than previously with age. I'd say we want to boost revenue from iHT by about half.
That will facilitate far more efficient succession, avoid owners running down their businesses toward death, stop people sitting on unproductive real estate assets, and remove the incentive for new inheritors of family businesses to sell at the first opportunity.
Absolutely nothing "revolutionary" about Islamist militancy - it's a throwback to the Middle Ages, if anything.
Back to sleep in the Cardamom Mountains
Later!
https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/
Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, who in many areas of the Middle East are the only providers of education and social support to the poor. They are also far less corrupt than the government's.
Hence the widespread support from the dispossessed. Money helps with those services, but isn't enough on its own. It needs people who believe in the Ummah.
I agree with Leon.
https://x.com/laylamoran/status/1724899797264384309?s=46
https://x.com/laylamoran/status/1724899802465312813?s=46
Call a ceasefire? Or call for a ceasefire? How many times does it need to be pointed out that a ceasefire involves both sides putting down arms. Is Hamas still firing rockets into Israel? The chances of us influencing Israel on this are close to zero, the chances of influencing Hamas on it must be absolutely zero.
If you’re facing annihilation, at what point does the Tory brand stop being useful to characters like Braverman, Boris, Patel? At what point do they go “sod it” and just go their own way? Maybe with… whisper it, Farage?
I think it is possible this could happen now, if things continue to be… sub optimal… for the government.
Like so often, power corrupts.
Two more mutually contradictory positions, you would struggle to find.
Given my options are likely to be Jason Zadrozny, Lee Anderson, someone for Labour and *maybe* a LibDem, I'm thinking about ordering one of these cock & balls stamps:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/995535757/penis-stamp
If you're going to start combining shares there are lots of ways to do it. Personally, I'd go:
Con 38
Lab+LD+Grn 17
RefUK 11
Oth 2
DK+WNV+Refd 33
More of the 2019 Con vote has gone left than right but more has just dropped off altogether than has defected to another party.
That said, winning any of them back will be hard. For one thing, I'm not convinced that these Reform voters are real. They're consistently showing up in polls at a higher share than in real elections; many are closer to abstainers in practice - but abstainers who are nonetheless disillusioned with the Tories. We shouldn't be surprised by this. No small number of first-time Tory voters in 2019 were first-time voters overall (other than, perhaps, the Brexit referendum).
@StewartWood
·
1h
The Government's priority: a tax break for the heirs to the wealthiest 4% of estates.
Lab 46%
Con 24%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
Anyway, Hamas' control of Gaza is based much more on fear than populism. Greater Israeli presence in the West Bank is the main reason the PA have remained in control over the West Bank - else Hamas would almost certainly have used the same bullying tactics to take over there by now.
https://twitter.com/PippyBing/status/1724889518090707048
Who sketched a cock in a hurry
The cock was long
A great big schlong!
Which made the vote counter worry.
“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays you instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
Edmund Burke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px_Grw3BlQ0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR1MA66Th4k
The conditions are there for such a party to flourish now - councillors in regions with big Muslim populations are quitting Labour, but they are unlikely to give up on the power they have; same will go for MPs as well I would think, it seems inevitable
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_European_Parliament_election_in_the_United_Kingdom
I imagine this may go unnoticed outside Poland, so I`d like to give heads up to all of you interested in the rather never officially undisclosed/confirmed circumstances around the beginning of the full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine from Polish perspective (mainly).
Just recently a book came out titled "Polska na wojnie" (eng. Poland at war) which is a mash up of interviews that the author (journalist Zbigniew Parafianowicz) made with several high ranking members of Polish government and presidential office, as well as army/special service officers, with some additional comments from their Ukrainian counterparts. They all remain anonymous, from obvious reasons, but the story checks out with what we`ve learned in the past.
Anyway, it surely made a splash here (🇵🇱), because it's full of spicy details (for a Polish and possibly Ukrainian readers) but there are some, that may be interesting for everybody else.
The talk is about the onset of coming war and the following months and gives some very interesting insight into the backstage, and especially - Polish-Ukrainian relations and cooperation. Below a couple of quotes from the book as reference (throw it into google translator), but I`ll give you some of the interesting snippets...
https://twitter.com/FilippDM/status/1724171496552063182
The point towards the end about recently strained Polish/Ukrainian relations (see also the current lorry drivers dispute which has blocked the border to goods) is underreported by U.K. journalists.
Who spoils his ballot with scrota
And several large cockses
Spanning various boxes
Which identifies him as a floater
Boris returning seems much more likely, and he has a great back story now to appeal as an outsider - voted in by the public, removed by the establishment. As old as the hills, but a great thing to have up your sleeve
"a war that has got nothing to do with us"
and
"a war between our ally and a terrorist group"
https://www.euronews.com/2023/11/15/polish-truckers-in-talks-with-ukraine-over-trucker-border-crossing-dispute
"PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Hun Sen has been Cambodia’s autocratic prime minister for nearly four decades, during which the opposition has been stifled and the country has grown increasingly close to China.
With his Cambodian People’s Party virtually guaranteed another landslide victory in Sunday’s election, it’s hard to imagine dramatic change on the horizon. But the 70-year-old former communist Khmer Rouge fighter and Asia's longest-serving leader says he is ready to hand the premiership to his oldest son, Hun Manet, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who heads the country's army."
source: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/07/23/cambodian-leaders-son-west-point-grad-set-take-reins-of-power-will-he-bring-change.html
By the way, in my quick search I learned that other members of the Cambodian regime have also trained at our military academies. (Scholarships for them apparently ended in 2021.)
Anything similar in the UK?
I suppose it happened before with Labour lefties backing the IRA?
Do any of the wars in former French colonies that our allies, the French, tend to get involved with?
What about Saudi Arabia's involvement in the Yemen? Or if they actually declared war on Qatar or Iran?
One I had once clearly the voter was worried it might spoil the ballot, so they instead stuck a post it note absolutely filled with text to the slip instead, which I presume they filled out before going to the polling station. Good on them for the extra effort.
I'm not generally a fan of really long or total sentences, but when it comes to committing election fraud and other election offences I do feel that should in itself mean a permanent ban on hold elected office ever again. Having committed corrupt electoral practices once I don't see why you should get another go.
And part of the problem here is that there's not a lot of nuance.
So, if the question is:
On x November, Hamas fighters invaded Israel from Gaza, killing around 1,500 people and taking a further 200 Israeli civilians hostages in tunnels below Gaza City. Is it morally justifiable for the Israelis to send in troops to rescue those hostages?
And I would hope the vast majority of people would side with Israel.
If, on the other hand, you were to ask a question about Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank, I would suspect people would be a great deal less supportive of Israel.
Osama bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ Goes Viral 21 Years Later — on TikTok
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/osama-bin-laden-letter-to-america-goes-viral-21-years-later-tiktok-1234879711/
https://www.barrons.com/news/israel-revises-down-october-7-hamas-attack-death-toll-to-1-200-foreign-ministry-07097f94
(*) near.
And what's certain is that lack of military capacity on the part of the US had nothing to do with their not 'winning' it.
Or were you being sarcastic ?
Keeping out of Vietnam, another bonus.
Even at its height whilst the US had a lot of troops it wasn't enough to do much more than guard airbases and ports, supply depots, key strategic points and cities, and launch search & destroy missions en masse. Which the NVA/Vietcong simply reoccupied after.
But, had it pumped in everything it got? It could have stabilised it but at enormous cost - men, material, treasure and political.
The Vietnam was was costly enough as it was.
Bankrupting the country to pursue a colonial project in a hostile nation that size - nothing short of a full occupation would have sufficed - would have been utterly pointless.
The idea that UK participation would have made any difference is equally nuts.
On the left, there’s going to be a high Green vote, and groups such as Lutfur Rhaman’s mob (Respect, Aspire?) running in areas of high Muslim populations.
On the right, we have Reform polling up to 10% and intending to stand everywhere in GB, and there’s also likely to be, if not Tommy Robinson and his mob, then someone a little softer such as Carl Benjamin standing candidates in WWC “red wall” towns.
In the UK the right cant get its act together, in France its the Left. Yet more splits in Melenchon's alliance and the Communists say theyre taking their ball home.
https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/nupes-le-parti-communiste-a-definitivement-rompu-avec-lfi-annonce-fabien-roussel-20231115