Kemi Badenoch is a member of a Conservative WhatsApp group called “Evil Plotters” despite telling party rebels to “stop messing around” and get behind Rishi Sunak, the Guardian can reveal.
The business secretary, who consistently comes out as the favourite cabinet minister in polls of Tory members, has criticised party colleagues for “stirring” up suggestions that she could replace the prime minister.
In a round of broadcast interviews on Sunday, she dismissed speculation over the plot to topple Sunak as “Westminster tittle-tattle” and said colleagues who put her name forward as an alternative were “not my friends”.
However, the Guardian has been told that Badenoch and Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, who is regarded as a key backer, are members of a WhatsApp group of similarly minded Tory MPs who are rallying round the business secretary’s longer-term ambitions.
I’m still completely lost about how she is considered a favourite by party members. I really cannot think of anything memorable about her so far except some rumblings about he being anti-woke.
The party is truly embuggered if that’s all that’s needed to be next leader instead of any substance or high level experience.
She is wooden at best, mostly invisible. No idea what the point of her is.
I wouldn’t describe her as wooden. She’s a confident speaker and polemicist, and more charismatic than most of her Tory peers.
She does strike me as pretty arrogant though. Every time I’ve seen her debating someone in parliament or TV she’s had a bit of a sneery teenage edge to her. I sensed similar at an event where she came to speak.
And much of Russian industry - including their arms manufacturing - still relies on western machine tools. If these were effectively sanctioned, which they are currently not, their arms production would drop off a cliff within a few months.
Says the majority of Russia's CNC machine tool imports are now from China, and the total is now way more than before the invasion
Reportedly, not yet the arms industry. (Though no doubt it won’t take all that long for China to catch up.)
https://theins.ru/en/politics/268661 … One of the most important cogs in that Russian war machine is machine tools themselves — including machining centers, lathes, and electric discharge machines — which are used in the production of almost every weapon in the Russian arsenal. Most of the machines used in the manufacture of high-precision military equipment are produced by companies in the European Union, Switzerland, Japan, and North America, all of which have joined the international sanctions regime against Russia. Russian attempts to fill the gap with Made in China substitutes have not yielded acceptable results — at least from Moscow’s point of view.
However, there is one additional economy capable of producing the types of machines that the Russian military-industrial complex craves: Taiwan, which is a leading exporter of high-precision cutting electric discharge machines, cylindrical and profile grinding machines, thread grinding and gear grinding machines, longitudinal turning machines, and vertical turning machining centers. While the quality of Taiwanese machines still lags behind that of its Western competitors, it still represents an improvement when compared with the options on offer from China.
“The accuracy and productivity of turning and milling machines from China or Taiwan are similar,” Dr. Mykola Skrypnyk, an engineering PhD and the CEO of Abplanalp Ukraine, told The Insider. “However, in what concerns electric discharge and grinding machines, the quality, functionality and performance of the Taiwanese machines is higher compared to those of the Chinese ones.”
That difference in quality is critical in the production of modern weaponry. Again according to Skrypnyk: “High accuracy is needed in the production of fuses, of high-precision weapons’ control systems, of high-quality optics, in the production of electronics and engines, for milling and grinding mono-wheels or blades of turbine engines, when machining combustion chambers, while producing gearboxes, while polishing cogwheels, when grinding aircraft chassis, crankshafts, in the manufacture of hydraulic pumps, hydraulic distributors, etc.”..
Kemi Badenoch is a member of a Conservative WhatsApp group called “Evil Plotters” despite telling party rebels to “stop messing around” and get behind Rishi Sunak, the Guardian can reveal.
The business secretary, who consistently comes out as the favourite cabinet minister in polls of Tory members, has criticised party colleagues for “stirring” up suggestions that she could replace the prime minister.
In a round of broadcast interviews on Sunday, she dismissed speculation over the plot to topple Sunak as “Westminster tittle-tattle” and said colleagues who put her name forward as an alternative were “not my friends”.
However, the Guardian has been told that Badenoch and Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, who is regarded as a key backer, are members of a WhatsApp group of similarly minded Tory MPs who are rallying round the business secretary’s longer-term ambitions.
I’m still completely lost about how she is considered a favourite by party members. I really cannot think of anything memorable about her so far except some rumblings about he being anti-woke.
The party is truly embuggered if that’s all that’s needed to be next leader instead of any substance or high level experience.
She is wooden at best, mostly invisible. No idea what the point of her is.
I wouldn’t describe her as wooden. She’s a confident speaker and polemicist, and more charismatic than most of her Tory peers.
She does strike me as pretty arrogant though. Every time I’ve seen her debating someone in parliament or TV she’s had a bit of a sneery teenage edge to her. I sensed similar at an event where she came to speak.
She's considered a favourite amongst members because everyone else is even worse.
I deliver to a little street called Elsie Knocker Grove. It's on a new estate and I've often wondered who they named it for
Today I looked up Elsie Knocker and I have a new heroine
She was a nurse and ambulance driver who served on the front line in Belgium in WW1, rescuing people from no man's land
She and her friend Mairi Chisholm realised they were losing too many men on the drive back to the nearest hospitals, so they set up a field hospital in the basement of a house considerably closer to the front. They saved thousands of wounded soldiers
Another of her volounteer colleagues described her thus; "She had an irresistible inclination towards the greatest possible danger"
An excruciating attempt by Harriet Harman to downplay the 3-0 lead the Tories have over Labour on female leaders. Shouldn’t the Labour men be championing feminism by virtue of being left wing politicians, so the women aren’t considered a subversive force?
Perhaps Conservatives should explain how the three female leaders were all ousted by the Party (MPs, male dominated) rather than by the electorate.
Same reason we ousted Boris Johnson, they were no longer an electoral asset.
2019 Cons disagree, or at least they regret the decision now.
Any news on that YouGov from The Times on Saturday? I can’t find the tables. Do they have to publish them?
Sorry, do you have some polling evidence for that assertion?
No need to apologise, there’s loads of it.
Got to Twitter, or ‘X’ if you prefer, and look for ‘Redfield & Wilton’. Then search for ‘Boris’ ‘2019’ & you will find a dozen or more polls on the matter
YouGov at the weekend found 35% of 2019 Tories saying Boris as leader would make it more likely they’d vote Tory, but they haven’t published the other side of the poll. For Badenoch it was something like 70% saying don’t know/no difference, so Boris is probably a net asset, although can’t be sure
Wine worth more than €1.5m (£1.3m) has vanished from La Tour d'Argent, one of Paris' most famous restaurants and the inspiration for the film Ratatouille.
Kemi Badenoch is a member of a Conservative WhatsApp group called “Evil Plotters” despite telling party rebels to “stop messing around” and get behind Rishi Sunak, the Guardian can reveal.
The business secretary, who consistently comes out as the favourite cabinet minister in polls of Tory members, has criticised party colleagues for “stirring” up suggestions that she could replace the prime minister.
In a round of broadcast interviews on Sunday, she dismissed speculation over the plot to topple Sunak as “Westminster tittle-tattle” and said colleagues who put her name forward as an alternative were “not my friends”.
However, the Guardian has been told that Badenoch and Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, who is regarded as a key backer, are members of a WhatsApp group of similarly minded Tory MPs who are rallying round the business secretary’s longer-term ambitions.
I’m still completely lost about how she is considered a favourite by party members. I really cannot think of anything memorable about her so far except some rumblings about he being anti-woke.
The party is truly embuggered if that’s all that’s needed to be next leader instead of any substance or high level experience.
She is wooden at best, mostly invisible. No idea what the point of her is.
I wouldn’t describe her as wooden. She’s a confident speaker and polemicist, and more charismatic than most of her Tory peers.
She does strike me as pretty arrogant though. Every time I’ve seen her debating someone in parliament or TV she’s had a bit of a sneery teenage edge to her. I sensed similar at an event where she came to speak.
I think being LOTO would suit her. She speaks well and articulately, and a bit of arrogance is needed in a leader. Pretty useless at actually doing anything of course.
This one is served by the Democrat Minority of a House Committee looking into $8m of identified funds received by Chump and his entities whilst he was President, and have not been declared. From China, Saudi Arabia etc.
They have served subpoenas covering all ~500 of his business entities to smoke it all out.
Possible violation of the "Emoluments" clause of the Constitution.
And much of Russian industry - including their arms manufacturing - still relies on western machine tools. If these were effectively sanctioned, which they are currently not, their arms production would drop off a cliff within a few months.
Says the majority of Russia's CNC machine tool imports are now from China, and the total is now way more than before the invasion
Reportedly, not yet the arms industry. (Though no doubt it won’t take all that long for China to catch up.)
https://theins.ru/en/politics/268661 … One of the most important cogs in that Russian war machine is machine tools themselves — including machining centers, lathes, and electric discharge machines — which are used in the production of almost every weapon in the Russian arsenal. Most of the machines used in the manufacture of high-precision military equipment are produced by companies in the European Union, Switzerland, Japan, and North America, all of which have joined the international sanctions regime against Russia. Russian attempts to fill the gap with Made in China substitutes have not yielded acceptable results — at least from Moscow’s point of view.
However, there is one additional economy capable of producing the types of machines that the Russian military-industrial complex craves: Taiwan, which is a leading exporter of high-precision cutting electric discharge machines, cylindrical and profile grinding machines, thread grinding and gear grinding machines, longitudinal turning machines, and vertical turning machining centers. While the quality of Taiwanese machines still lags behind that of its Western competitors, it still represents an improvement when compared with the options on offer from China.
“The accuracy and productivity of turning and milling machines from China or Taiwan are similar,” Dr. Mykola Skrypnyk, an engineering PhD and the CEO of Abplanalp Ukraine, told The Insider. “However, in what concerns electric discharge and grinding machines, the quality, functionality and performance of the Taiwanese machines is higher compared to those of the Chinese ones.”
That difference in quality is critical in the production of modern weaponry. Again according to Skrypnyk: “High accuracy is needed in the production of fuses, of high-precision weapons’ control systems, of high-quality optics, in the production of electronics and engines, for milling and grinding mono-wheels or blades of turbine engines, when machining combustion chambers, while producing gearboxes, while polishing cogwheels, when grinding aircraft chassis, crankshafts, in the manufacture of hydraulic pumps, hydraulic distributors, etc.”..
The big issue is not so much ultimate results, but being able to get to the required accuracy quickly.
Some of the big American CNC machines can achieve startling results with one very high speed pass. Polished to perfection.
You could get there with a mix of processes and lots of finishing, using lesser machines. But the reject rate would go up massively and the effort....
Wine worth more than €1.5m (£1.3m) has vanished from La Tour d'Argent, one of Paris' most famous restaurants and the inspiration for the film Ratatouille.
Wine worth more than €1.5m (£1.3m) has vanished from La Tour d'Argent, one of Paris' most famous restaurants and the inspiration for the film Ratatouille.
The bit I find interesting is that it seems to only be 83 bottles of wine.
Wonder how many of the vanished bottles were fakes? And not just by some amateur.
It's interesting to poke around the vineyards. Bottles are held, stacked, unlabelled in wheeled cages, for the most part. Labelled with a sign hung on the cage.
So you have a million euro of wine in one cage. The next one over is worth a quarter of that, because of the year. I wonder what accidents have happened.
This one is served by the Democrat Minority of a House Committee looking into $8m of identified funds received by Chump and his entities whilst he was President, and have not been declared. From China, Saudi Arabia etc.
They have served subpoenas covering all ~500 of his business entities to smoke it all out.
Possible violation of the "Emoluments" clause of the Constitution.
This one is served by the Democrat Minority of a House Committee looking into $8m of identified funds received by Chump and his entities whilst he was President, and have not been declared. From China, Saudi Arabia etc.
They have served subpoenas covering all ~500 of his business entities to smoke it all out.
Possible violation of the "Emoluments" clause of the Constitution.
An excruciating attempt by Harriet Harman to downplay the 3-0 lead the Tories have over Labour on female leaders. Shouldn’t the Labour men be championing feminism by virtue of being left wing politicians, so the women aren’t considered a subversive force?
Wine worth more than €1.5m (£1.3m) has vanished from La Tour d'Argent, one of Paris' most famous restaurants and the inspiration for the film Ratatouille.
Twitter/X just shows me a "sign up to view!" page - can you give us the gist?
She used irridentist rhetoric about uniting Somalia with other territories and said that she was using her political position in the US to further the interests of Somalia.
Rep. Ilhan Omar has been accused of using “ethno-racist rhetoric” by Somaliland Ambassador Rhoda Elmi.
The rebuke followed Ms. Omar’s speech in Minneapolis in which she pledged her support for her native Somalia, though she later insisted her comments were misinterpreted.
Some translations of a video of the speech, which Ms. Omar delivered in Somali, said she was telling Somali Americans that her “Number One job” is to look out for Somalia and that one day, the country will go after other territories to “unify all Somali-speaking people.”
An excruciating attempt by Harriet Harman to downplay the 3-0 lead the Tories have over Labour on female leaders. Shouldn’t the Labour men be championing feminism by virtue of being left wing politicians, so the women aren’t considered a subversive force?
Labour: Wokeness doesn’t exist. There is no culture war
The BBC: “Current BBC hiring guidelines:
All candidates are asked to "explain what diversity and inclusion means to you and, should you be successful, what opportunities do you see for you to promote, celebrate or encourage diversity and inclusion in your role?”
Managers are told "don't hire" if applicants display a “Lack of indication of positive intent regarding diversity and inclusion and surrounding topics”, a “Lack of interest in learning more where no evidence of education and understanding of diversity and inclusion was given” and if a “Candidate's conduct in interview did not reflect expected evidence or behaviours described above”.
Candidates who “will elevate our culture from outset” are those who are “an advocate or ally”, take “an active rather than passive role in improving things”, “challenge exclusive behaviour”, “enabling and supporting others to be successful”, and help “everyone feel included and that they have a voice in work”.
Candidates are described as “suitable” if they understand “that diversity is not always visible to the eye”, are aware “of [their] own language and behaviour”, and educate “oneself and [share] knowledge with others”.”
YOU MUST BELIEVE IN WOKE. ONLY ONE OPINION IS ALLOWED. THE PARTY IS NEVER WRONG. DO NOT QUESTION ANGKAR!!
It's a performance: they have to ask, and you have to answer.
You just come up with some vaguely inclusive response, and then move on.
Every year at my annual review I have to explain how my 'goals' line up with various equality, inclusive goals the org has set. And every year I struggle to explain how 'added a new button to a webpage' or 'fixed someones computer' aligns.
Labour: Wokeness doesn’t exist. There is no culture war
The BBC: “Current BBC hiring guidelines:
All candidates are asked to "explain what diversity and inclusion means to you and, should you be successful, what opportunities do you see for you to promote, celebrate or encourage diversity and inclusion in your role?”
Managers are told "don't hire" if applicants display a “Lack of indication of positive intent regarding diversity and inclusion and surrounding topics”, a “Lack of interest in learning more where no evidence of education and understanding of diversity and inclusion was given” and if a “Candidate's conduct in interview did not reflect expected evidence or behaviours described above”.
Candidates who “will elevate our culture from outset” are those who are “an advocate or ally”, take “an active rather than passive role in improving things”, “challenge exclusive behaviour”, “enabling and supporting others to be successful”, and help “everyone feel included and that they have a voice in work”.
Candidates are described as “suitable” if they understand “that diversity is not always visible to the eye”, are aware “of [their] own language and behaviour”, and educate “oneself and [share] knowledge with others”.”
YOU MUST BELIEVE IN WOKE. ONLY ONE OPINION IS ALLOWED. THE PARTY IS NEVER WRONG. DO NOT QUESTION ANGKAR!!
It's a performance: they have to ask, and you have to answer.
You just come up with some vaguely inclusive response, and then move on.
Every year at my annual review I have to explain how my 'goals' line up with various equality, inclusive goals the org has set. And every year I struggle to explain how 'added a new button to a webpage' or 'fixed someones computer' aligns.
You know, we are all human beings, and we should all treat one another as such. Isn't that all there is to it?
Comments
She does strike me as pretty arrogant though. Every time I’ve seen her debating someone in parliament or TV she’s had a bit of a sneery teenage edge to her. I sensed similar at an event where she came to speak.
(Though no doubt it won’t take all that long for China to catch up.)
https://theins.ru/en/politics/268661
… One of the most important cogs in that Russian war machine is machine tools themselves — including machining centers, lathes, and electric discharge machines — which are used in the production of almost every weapon in the Russian arsenal. Most of the machines used in the manufacture of high-precision military equipment are produced by companies in the European Union, Switzerland, Japan, and North America, all of which have joined the international sanctions regime against Russia. Russian attempts to fill the gap with Made in China substitutes have not yielded acceptable results — at least from Moscow’s point of view.
However, there is one additional economy capable of producing the types of machines that the Russian military-industrial complex craves: Taiwan, which is a leading exporter of high-precision cutting electric discharge machines, cylindrical and profile grinding machines, thread grinding and gear grinding machines, longitudinal turning machines, and vertical turning machining centers. While the quality of Taiwanese machines still lags behind that of its Western competitors, it still represents an improvement when compared with the options on offer from China.
“The accuracy and productivity of turning and milling machines from China or Taiwan are similar,” Dr. Mykola Skrypnyk, an engineering PhD and the CEO of Abplanalp Ukraine, told The Insider. “However, in what concerns electric discharge and grinding machines, the quality, functionality and performance of the Taiwanese machines is higher compared to those of the Chinese ones.”
That difference in quality is critical in the production of modern weaponry. Again according to Skrypnyk: “High accuracy is needed in the production of fuses, of high-precision weapons’ control systems, of high-quality optics, in the production of electronics and engines, for milling and grinding mono-wheels or blades of turbine engines, when machining combustion chambers, while producing gearboxes, while polishing cogwheels, when grinding aircraft chassis, crankshafts, in the manufacture of hydraulic pumps, hydraulic distributors, etc.”..
Today I looked up Elsie Knocker and I have a new heroine
She was a nurse and ambulance driver who served on the front line in Belgium in WW1, rescuing people from no man's land
She and her friend Mairi Chisholm realised they were losing too many men on the drive back to the nearest hospitals, so they set up a field hospital in the basement of a house considerably closer to the front. They saved thousands of wounded soldiers
Another of her volounteer colleagues described her thus; "She had an irresistible inclination towards the greatest possible danger"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Knocker
Got to Twitter, or ‘X’ if you prefer, and look for ‘Redfield & Wilton’. Then search for ‘Boris’ ‘2019’ & you will find a dozen or more polls on the matter
YouGov at the weekend found 35% of 2019 Tories saying Boris as leader would make it more likely they’d vote Tory, but they haven’t published the other side of the poll. For Badenoch it was something like 70% saying don’t know/no difference, so Boris is probably a net asset, although can’t be sure
IpSOS had him and Rishi about the same
This one is served by the Democrat Minority of a House Committee looking into $8m of identified funds received by Chump and his entities whilst he was President, and have not been declared. From China, Saudi Arabia etc.
They have served subpoenas covering all ~500 of his business entities to smoke it all out.
Possible violation of the "Emoluments" clause of the Constitution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFNb6GF3UIY
Some of the big American CNC machines can achieve startling results with one very high speed pass. Polished to perfection.
You could get there with a mix of processes and lots of finishing, using lesser machines. But the reject rate would go up massively and the effort....
It's interesting to poke around the vineyards. Bottles are held, stacked, unlabelled in wheeled cages, for the most part. Labelled with a sign hung on the cage.
So you have a million euro of wine in one cage. The next one over is worth a quarter of that, because of the year. I wonder what accidents have happened.
https://x.com/ambrhodajelmi/status/1751669533171994655
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/jan/29/rep-ilhan-omar-criticized-for-speech-saying-somali/
Rep. Ilhan Omar has been accused of using “ethno-racist rhetoric” by Somaliland Ambassador Rhoda Elmi.
The rebuke followed Ms. Omar’s speech in Minneapolis in which she pledged her support for her native Somalia, though she later insisted her comments were misinterpreted.
Some translations of a video of the speech, which Ms. Omar delivered in Somali, said she was telling Somali Americans that her “Number One job” is to look out for Somalia and that one day, the country will go after other territories to “unify all Somali-speaking people.”
come out for Truss
NEW THREAD