Details of the bipartisan Senate border bill, which the House speaker has just rejected out of hand (apparently without even reading it; if he has, he's publicly lying about what's in it).
Sure as eggs is eggs, youth crime will explode in Brum in coming years.
Tragic to see my home town brought this low...
Sam Freedman @Samfr Birmingham children's services to be cut by around 25%. First wave of cuts include these. This is a very obvious disaster in the making.
This is so utterly stupid. We need to spend more on our kids - throw money at early years and you get it back many times over in money saved in crime and health.
Idiot Tories. Utter fools.
BIrmingham is labour run, its debts are a legacy of several prior administrations, mostly labour.
It also has a large, longstanding, claim for equal pay outstanding.
Still, it is all the Tories fault.
I suspect the wider argument is that on the Tories' watch, local authorities including as many Tory administrations as Labour are filing section 114 notices.
But hey I am sure we can blame New Labour or Ed Davey for the last 14 years of mismanagement.
Each council exists in isolation and there are different reasons for the S114's however Birmingham, like Nottingham, is clearly down to poor management by previous councils. In both cases mainly labour.
So you are picking and choosing your section 114 notices. Labour council mismanagement, Tory councils blighted by externalities beyond their control.
If we were to see American nuclear warheads stationed in Britain could Trump use them as leverage over us in some way? We need to prepare for the the fact that in less than 12 months we may have a President of the United States who is an effective enemy of this country.
We can't be sure how a second Trump Presidency will play out but the signs of closeness to Putin are ominous. Just as we are seeing greater co-ordination between China, Russia and Iran. Given how much Trump was a China hawk to begin with this seems curious. We may have to accept the freezing of the 'special' relationship.
The best thing would be to given Ukraine more support now to hopefully weaken Putin as much as possible. Ridicule him as Beijing's poodle. Showing fealty towards such a figure would make Trump look ridiculous. And I don't think he wants to look ridiculous.
Alternatively prepare to abandon Ukraine, and join Trump in cosying up to Putin. What's the problem?
There isn't one. Our entire geopolitical orientation is the way it is because America's is the way America's is. That is why we like the Saudis but hate the Iranians and hate the Russians but like the Turks. If Trump succeeds in changing the USA's foreign policy dispensation (the odds are against this actually happening, because the state seems to have its own ideas regardless of the POTUS), then we will change ours, the media will tell us how correct the new way is, and PB's biggest current Putin haters will be accusing us of being traitors if we object.
Sure thing, fool.
Apart from being a bit oversimplified and exaggerated, isn't it basically right what Luckyguy says here? I mean if Trump is elected and if he somehow manages to get the US out of NATO, which way is the UK going to jump? Obviously it would prioritise its alliance with the US, pretty sure Trump would be happy to have the UK tagging along and both countries are in so deep on the 'intelligence' and other levels it wouldn't be that easy to divorce.
If that happens might the history books write that the UK bounced the rest of European NATO into supporting an unwinnable war in Ukraine, which made continental Europe permanently poorer and weaker, fatally weakened NATO, and then flounced off at the first possible opportunity?
"Britain does not have eternal friends or enemies, only eternal interests".
Donald Trump is a highly unreliable partner, and American isolationism may yet leave Britain in a similar situation as in the 1960s, when De Gaulle said "Non" to UK entry into the EEC. By leaving NATO the US would already prove that it cannot be trusted to defend British security. Trump is mostly despised by British voters, and even if it could be made to work, it would not be a happy alliance.
While it is true that the US keeps the UK Trident subs on a very tight leash, the deep and increasing military collaboration with France shows our strategic interests to be more aligned with Europe than many think.
There is also the fact that, despite Brexit, British economic interests are going to remain fully bound up in the European economy.
In the meantime, the EU is preparing to fight and fund the Ukrainian war, whatever the USA does. Putin is un likely to make any kind of breakthrough, as political and economic pressure grows on him. It is just as likely that Russia would have to make terms with Europe in order to avoid its own collapse, and the addition of the resources, even of a weakened Russia, will make the EU the largest economy on the planet. Furthermore, unlike the USA, the EU remains engaged with the global economy such as the fast growing markets of Africa. Neither in technology are the EU doomsayers correct: In aerospace, pharmaceuticals and other key sectors, it has technology that matches or betters that of the USA and China. The USA is reshoring its lost manufacturing, but at the cost of efficiency and innovation, where it now lags behind in areas where it once had an overwhelming competitive advantage. Meanwhile as America isolates, even from NAFTA, Europe, China and India grow stronger symbiotic relationships, as we see in EVs, for example.
There are many doomsayers concerning the EU, but the UK has consistently underestimated the strength of Europe, and overestimated its position concerning the United States. Would an America under Trump care so much for global freedom, as it noisily abandons its own democracy? Certainly the Trump will have abandoned the clear principles of the Atlantic Charter that form the basis for our alliance.
So we should not hurry to make such a critical strategic choice. Our interests are not going to served by an alliance that may be abandoned at any moment by an unstable and authoritarian America. I predict therefore that at least in the medium term, our interests will eventually lead us to be more independent of the USA, with a closer strategic alignment with Europe, while not necessarily being fully aligned with either.
Whether the Euro/Atlantic community gets rebuilt is an open question, but the next few years will require very cool heads in Whitehall and Westminster.
It occurred to me that we.always discuss the danger of complacency for the party leading in the polls. "They've won anyway so I can just stay at home".
But the Tories are doing so badly there might be the opposite effect too.
"The Tories have lost anyway so I can vote Reform and register my displeasure with them. I won't be letting Labour in because they are going to win whatever."
If I were Reform, it's the line I'd be pushing.
Let’s see what happens in Wellingborough!
Blue skies and fluffy white clouds out of my window this morning! Looks good
An easy Labour win and a decent Reform performance.
I'd expect.
Wellingborough may be inverse Hartlepool. Not only have the Tories managed to select the worst candidate possible in the circumstances, they aren't campaigning in fear of what people will say to them.
So the opportunity really is there for ReFUK to come second. If they do? The impossible surely must become possible. They can't carry on with Rishi or they will get demolished - losing Wellingborough to Labour and coming 3rd behind the FUKers really points the way towards ELE.
So for your alt-right hard of thinking Tory MP, what do you do? Is there a foaming right unity candidate you can all coalesce behind? I would expect a visit from Mrs Brady with the pearl handle rather than a formal leadership challenge. But who is next? Braverman? Badenoch? Patel? Shapps?
The other option is the brave one. The top* 25 foaming right Tory MPs approach the lord Nigel, say they will immediately defect if he takes over the leadership. They have little to lose - the polls say they are doomed anyway. So why not roll the dice?
*yes I know. "top" is not a good word when we're talking about MPs with an average IQ of 87
You wouldn't even know a by election was on if you watched the news. It gets hardly a mention.
I doubt the tories will come third, although as you say they picked a really crap candidate - something they seem to do with most by elections - so who knows.
Sure as eggs is eggs, youth crime will explode in Brum in coming years.
Tragic to see my home town brought this low...
Sam Freedman @Samfr Birmingham children's services to be cut by around 25%. First wave of cuts include these. This is a very obvious disaster in the making.
This is so utterly stupid. We need to spend more on our kids - throw money at early years and you get it back many times over in money saved in crime and health.
Idiot Tories. Utter fools.
BIrmingham is labour run, its debts are a legacy of several prior administrations, mostly labour.
It also has a large, longstanding, claim for equal pay outstanding.
Still, it is all the Tories fault.
They're just part of the wider systemic problem of local government funding - which is most certainly central government's fault, especially the failure to reform local tax (which means, inter aliis, that KCIII pays less on Buck House than a Blackpool semi owner, which is crazy).
In some cases this is clearly correct but in the case of Brum and Nottingham , for example, it is not. Both Birmingham and Nottinghams woes are largely down to mismanagement.
I said here at the time the NI Cut was announced it was pointless giving with one hand if the govt was going to starve councils with the other.
What I don't understand about this argument is that you are trying to make a partisan spin out of a crisis which was itself a partisan play.
Slashing the money for local government was a deliberate strategy by Osborne. Take away the money that makes them viable, force them to spin out services, the good Tory councils will thrive, the crappy Labour ones will fold, blame Labour councillors and clean up - all whilst saving money for the taxpayer.
It hasn't worked has it? Tory councils going pop just as frequently. And regardless of at which level the cuts are being levelled, they are Tory budget cuts.
Adult social care being a prime example - you cut government funding and told councils to levy it on council tax. Whilst capping the CT rise so that it would be a Big Cut to adult social care. That doesn't save money, it costs money. Reactive crisis spending always costs more.
I don't understand why this isn't clear. Tory councils and councillors at national level (LGA etc) don't pull their punches. Yet the party and its fellow travellers keep insisting the opposite is true. Its more of "the sky really is green, vote Conservative" guff which has them heading for demolition at the election.
It occurred to me that we.always discuss the danger of complacency for the party leading in the polls. "They've won anyway so I can just stay at home".
But the Tories are doing so badly there might be the opposite effect too.
"The Tories have lost anyway so I can vote Reform and register my displeasure with them. I won't be letting Labour in because they are going to win whatever."
If I were Reform, it's the line I'd be pushing.
Let’s see what happens in Wellingborough!
Blue skies and fluffy white clouds out of my window this morning! Looks good
An easy Labour win and a decent Reform performance.
I'd expect.
Wellingborough may be inverse Hartlepool. Not only have the Tories managed to select the worst candidate possible in the circumstances, they aren't campaigning in fear of what people will say to them.
So the opportunity really is there for ReFUK to come second. If they do? The impossible surely must become possible. They can't carry on with Rishi or they will get demolished - losing Wellingborough to Labour and coming 3rd behind the FUKers really points the way towards ELE.
So for your alt-right hard of thinking Tory MP, what do you do? Is there a foaming right unity candidate you can all coalesce behind? I would expect a visit from Mrs Brady with the pearl handle rather than a formal leadership challenge. But who is next? Braverman? Badenoch? Patel? Shapps?
The other option is the brave one. The top* 25 foaming right Tory MPs approach the lord Nigel, say they will immediately defect if he takes over the leadership. They have little to lose - the polls say they are doomed anyway. So why not roll the dice?
*yes I know. "top" is not a good word when we're talking about MPs with an average IQ of 87
Besides, the foaming right isn't enough to win, even in Today's Conservative Party. You've got to get a fair way into the pragmatic right to get to fifty percent. That was how Bozza got the nod in 2019.
In addition, Rishi has his own revolver in that situation; call a General Election. (After all, if he's going to have to leave No 10 anyway, a GE buys him a bit more time and a tiny chance.)
Sure as eggs is eggs, youth crime will explode in Brum in coming years.
Tragic to see my home town brought this low...
Sam Freedman @Samfr Birmingham children's services to be cut by around 25%. First wave of cuts include these. This is a very obvious disaster in the making.
This is so utterly stupid. We need to spend more on our kids - throw money at early years and you get it back many times over in money saved in crime and health.
Idiot Tories. Utter fools.
BIrmingham is labour run, its debts are a legacy of several prior administrations, mostly labour.
It also has a large, longstanding, claim for equal pay outstanding.
Still, it is all the Tories fault.
I suspect the wider argument is that on the Tories' watch, local authorities including as many Tory administrations as Labour are filing section 114 notices.
But hey I am sure we can blame New Labour or Ed Davey for the last 14 years of mismanagement.
Each council exists in isolation and there are different reasons for the S114's however Birmingham, like Nottingham, is clearly down to poor management by previous councils. In both cases mainly labour.
So you are picking and choosing your section 114 notices. Labour council mismanagement, Tory councils blighted by externalities beyond their control.
Fair enough.
Tell that to the voters in Woking. The reckless management of public resources by Tory councils has been utterly woeful.
It occurred to me that we.always discuss the danger of complacency for the party leading in the polls. "They've won anyway so I can just stay at home".
But the Tories are doing so badly there might be the opposite effect too.
"The Tories have lost anyway so I can vote Reform and register my displeasure with them. I won't be letting Labour in because they are going to win whatever."
If I were Reform, it's the line I'd be pushing.
Let’s see what happens in Wellingborough!
Blue skies and fluffy white clouds out of my window this morning! Looks good
An easy Labour win and a decent Reform performance.
I'd expect.
Wellingborough may be inverse Hartlepool. Not only have the Tories managed to select the worst candidate possible in the circumstances, they aren't campaigning in fear of what people will say to them.
So the opportunity really is there for ReFUK to come second. If they do? The impossible surely must become possible. They can't carry on with Rishi or they will get demolished - losing Wellingborough to Labour and coming 3rd behind the FUKers really points the way towards ELE.
So for your alt-right hard of thinking Tory MP, what do you do? Is there a foaming right unity candidate you can all coalesce behind? I would expect a visit from Mrs Brady with the pearl handle rather than a formal leadership challenge. But who is next? Braverman? Badenoch? Patel? Shapps?
The other option is the brave one. The top* 25 foaming right Tory MPs approach the lord Nigel, say they will immediately defect if he takes over the leadership. They have little to lose - the polls say they are doomed anyway. So why not roll the dice?
*yes I know. "top" is not a good word when we're talking about MPs with an average IQ of 87
If.
There’s been some talk of Reform UK coming second, but is there any solid evidence to think this might happen? Any news from the consistency? Reform’s best recent by-election result was a mere 5.4%. Third would be a good result for them.
Sure as eggs is eggs, youth crime will explode in Brum in coming years.
Tragic to see my home town brought this low...
Sam Freedman @Samfr Birmingham children's services to be cut by around 25%. First wave of cuts include these. This is a very obvious disaster in the making.
This is so utterly stupid. We need to spend more on our kids - throw money at early years and you get it back many times over in money saved in crime and health.
Idiot Tories. Utter fools.
BIrmingham is labour run, its debts are a legacy of several prior administrations, mostly labour.
It also has a large, longstanding, claim for equal pay outstanding.
Still, it is all the Tories fault.
I suspect the wider argument is that on the Tories' watch, local authorities including as many Tory administrations as Labour are filing section 114 notices.
But hey I am sure we can blame New Labour or Ed Davey for the last 14 years of mismanagement.
Each council exists in isolation and there are different reasons for the S114's however Birmingham, like Nottingham, is clearly down to poor management by previous councils. In both cases mainly labour.
So you are picking and choosing your section 114 notices. Labour council mismanagement, Tory councils blighted by externalities beyond their control.
Fair enough.
There are many things at play here but the most obvious unifying causal factors to me are
a. central government creating new unfunded burdens and passing them on to local government, b. simultaneously reducing its funding it as a 'quick win' during spending rounds. c. not thinking through the impact of other policies on local government (eg housing regulation leading to reductions in private rented sector supply leading to increased costs of meeting homelessness duties)
All these are government led mistakes. In many ways the best outcome is that the government are forced in to taking responsibility for the situation by Councils declaring bankruptcy and then central gov't have to 'own' the problem they caused via the commissioners they send in (and who incidentally I understand are paid something like £1200 per day to do so).
Sure as eggs is eggs, youth crime will explode in Brum in coming years.
Tragic to see my home town brought this low...
Sam Freedman @Samfr Birmingham children's services to be cut by around 25%. First wave of cuts include these. This is a very obvious disaster in the making.
This is so utterly stupid. We need to spend more on our kids - throw money at early years and you get it back many times over in money saved in crime and health.
Idiot Tories. Utter fools.
BIrmingham is labour run, its debts are a legacy of several prior administrations, mostly labour.
It also has a large, longstanding, claim for equal pay outstanding.
Still, it is all the Tories fault.
They're just part of the wider systemic problem of local government funding - which is most certainly central government's fault, especially the failure to reform local tax (which means, inter aliis, that KCIII pays less on Buck House than a Blackpool semi owner, which is crazy).
In some cases this is clearly correct but in the case of Brum and Nottingham , for example, it is not. Both Birmingham and Nottinghams woes are largely down to mismanagement.
I said here at the time the NI Cut was announced it was pointless giving with one hand if the govt was going to starve councils with the other.
What I don't understand about this argument is that you are trying to make a partisan spin out of a crisis which was itself a partisan play.
Slashing the money for local government was a deliberate strategy by Osborne. Take away the money that makes them viable, force them to spin out services, the good Tory councils will thrive, the crappy Labour ones will fold, blame Labour councillors and clean up - all whilst saving money for the taxpayer.
It hasn't worked has it? Tory councils going pop just as frequently. And regardless of at which level the cuts are being levelled, they are Tory budget cuts.
Adult social care being a prime example - you cut government funding and told councils to levy it on council tax. Whilst capping the CT rise so that it would be a Big Cut to adult social care. That doesn't save money, it costs money. Reactive crisis spending always costs more.
I don't understand why this isn't clear. Tory councils and councillors at national level (LGA etc) don't pull their punches. Yet the party and its fellow travellers keep insisting the opposite is true. Its more of "the sky really is green, vote Conservative" guff which has them heading for demolition at the election.
No, you, a Lib Dem PPC, were making a partisan comment on a thread about Birmingham and blaming the Tories. I just pointed out this was not solely down to the Tories. I traditionally vote labour although will not vote any more.
With councils there are some who, like Havering, that are well run but do not get sufficient funding from govt. Govt cuts to grants when loading councils up with extra responsibilities then surely something has to give. Especially when they cannot raise adequate funding from council tax. Our Council Leader was making this point on Sunday Politics yesterday.
However among the councils who have struggled due to the problem with govt grant are some, like Nottingham and Birmingham, who have been poorly administered and their financial woes are not down to Westminster. The current labour admin thought they had settled the equal pay claim for 150 million, it is nearer 750 million. There is also a colossal overspend on an IT project. They are unlucky. They have ended up holding the baby.
You seem to be of the view all councils financial plights are down to Westminster and the grant.
The Grammys is the only one of these award shows actually watching. They usually have a handful of seriously talented performances, rather than just a bunch of luvvies patting each other on the back.
It occurred to me that we.always discuss the danger of complacency for the party leading in the polls. "They've won anyway so I can just stay at home".
But the Tories are doing so badly there might be the opposite effect too.
"The Tories have lost anyway so I can vote Reform and register my displeasure with them. I won't be letting Labour in because they are going to win whatever."
If I were Reform, it's the line I'd be pushing.
Let’s see what happens in Wellingborough!
Blue skies and fluffy white clouds out of my window this morning! Looks good
An easy Labour win and a decent Reform performance.
I'd expect.
Wellingborough may be inverse Hartlepool. Not only have the Tories managed to select the worst candidate possible in the circumstances, they aren't campaigning in fear of what people will say to them.
So the opportunity really is there for ReFUK to come second. If they do? The impossible surely must become possible. They can't carry on with Rishi or they will get demolished - losing Wellingborough to Labour and coming 3rd behind the FUKers really points the way towards ELE.
So for your alt-right hard of thinking Tory MP, what do you do? Is there a foaming right unity candidate you can all coalesce behind? I would expect a visit from Mrs Brady with the pearl handle rather than a formal leadership challenge. But who is next? Braverman? Badenoch? Patel? Shapps?
The other option is the brave one. The top* 25 foaming right Tory MPs approach the lord Nigel, say they will immediately defect if he takes over the leadership. They have little to lose - the polls say they are doomed anyway. So why not roll the dice?
*yes I know. "top" is not a good word when we're talking about MPs with an average IQ of 87
If.
There’s been some talk of Reform UK coming second, but is there any solid evidence to think this might happen? Any news from the consistency? Reform’s best recent by-election result was a mere 5.4%. Third would be a good result for them.
Almost certainly no polling evidence, just reportage. All of the components are there for a seismic shift - local Tory scandal removes shamed MP, Tories select his missus, national collapseothon, no Tory campaign locally as ReFUK say all the things that ex Tory voters like.
Who knows. But we can all confidently predict the Tory score to collapse through the floor. So it depends whether their still Tory but angry voters stay at home or try to shove the party in their preferred direction of travel with a protest vote.
Remember how UKIP were ahead of them in a few polls a decade ago? Like that.
Sure as eggs is eggs, youth crime will explode in Brum in coming years.
Tragic to see my home town brought this low...
Sam Freedman @Samfr Birmingham children's services to be cut by around 25%. First wave of cuts include these. This is a very obvious disaster in the making.
This is so utterly stupid. We need to spend more on our kids - throw money at early years and you get it back many times over in money saved in crime and health.
Idiot Tories. Utter fools.
BIrmingham is labour run, its debts are a legacy of several prior administrations, mostly labour.
It also has a large, longstanding, claim for equal pay outstanding.
Still, it is all the Tories fault.
I suspect the wider argument is that on the Tories' watch, local authorities including as many Tory administrations as Labour are filing section 114 notices.
But hey I am sure we can blame New Labour or Ed Davey for the last 14 years of mismanagement.
Each council exists in isolation and there are different reasons for the S114's however Birmingham, like Nottingham, is clearly down to poor management by previous councils. In both cases mainly labour.
So you are picking and choosing your section 114 notices. Labour council mismanagement, Tory councils blighted by externalities beyond their control.
Fair enough.
There are many things at play here but the most obvious unifying causal factors to me are
a. central government creating new unfunded burdens and passing them on to local government, b. simultaneously reducing its funding it as a 'quick win' during spending rounds. c. not thinking through the impact of other policies on local government (eg housing regulation leading to reductions in private rented sector supply leading to increased costs of meeting homelessness duties)
All these are government led mistakes. In many ways the best outcome is that the government are forced in to taking responsibility for the situation by Councils declaring bankruptcy and then central gov't have to 'own' the problem they caused via the commissioners they send in (and who incidentally I understand are paid something like £1200 per day to do so).
For a Party that demands decentralisation and democratic accountability that is some claim against the Tories.
Sure as eggs is eggs, youth crime will explode in Brum in coming years.
Tragic to see my home town brought this low...
Sam Freedman @Samfr Birmingham children's services to be cut by around 25%. First wave of cuts include these. This is a very obvious disaster in the making.
This is one of Osborne’s “clever schemes” that is causing endless problem
Create a legal obligation for councils to fund care services but take the decisions out of their hands (reduce central government deficit)
Inadequately fund these obligations via central grant
Cap ability to raise council tax (even with the social care premium)
Result is (a) all non mandated services are cut to the bone; (b) councils chase new sources of income like Thurrock, Woking or Westminster; and (c) councils go bankrupt
You need to align obligations/funding/responsibilty. It’s fine to use councils as a delivery mechanism but, if so, it needs to be adequately funded
Sure as eggs is eggs, youth crime will explode in Brum in coming years.
Tragic to see my home town brought this low...
Sam Freedman @Samfr Birmingham children's services to be cut by around 25%. First wave of cuts include these. This is a very obvious disaster in the making.
This is so utterly stupid. We need to spend more on our kids - throw money at early years and you get it back many times over in money saved in crime and health.
Idiot Tories. Utter fools.
BIrmingham is labour run, its debts are a legacy of several prior administrations, mostly labour.
It also has a large, longstanding, claim for equal pay outstanding.
Still, it is all the Tories fault.
I suspect the wider argument is that on the Tories' watch, local authorities including as many Tory administrations as Labour are filing section 114 notices.
But hey I am sure we can blame New Labour or Ed Davey for the last 14 years of mismanagement.
Perhaps this is another example of the dangers of having a process.
Section 114 implicitly assumes that councils can only get into trouble by frivolous spending, and that the solution is therefore to have someone stern looking over the books and cutting waste. And that probably was true, once upon a time.
Thing is that recent government decisions have shrunk the window for councils to set a viable budget to somewhere between eyewateringly tight and nonexistent.
Here in Romford, Havering council have been frugal forever. The only way they can get the coming year's budget to work is to get permission to borrow about £50 million for day to day spending, which is no solution at all;
The Tories insist that local councils must fulfil several onerous statutory duties they and then offer a block grant that not only allows for no discretion, but is insufficient to fulfill even the statutory duties now required by law.
Result: bankruptcy.
So then they promote the merger of local authorities in order to gain non existent economies of scale, yet after the costs of the creation of new UAs have been absorbed the result is: still bankruptcy.
Either the government expands block grants or lifts the cap on the council tax, or reduces the statutory duties. Since it refuses to do any of these things the result will remain: bankruptcy.
Thanks Tories. by the way, did anyone see that three quarters of previously local authority housing (sold at huge discounts to market value to tenants) is now in the private rented sector? Even their previously acknowledged success has turned to ashes.
I wouldn't feel it an enormous loss if I didn't have to read about Taylor Swift or the MAGA organisation when logging on to PB. I'm happy to say that her oeuvre has largely passed me by.
It occurred to me that we.always discuss the danger of complacency for the party leading in the polls. "They've won anyway so I can just stay at home".
But the Tories are doing so badly there might be the opposite effect too.
"The Tories have lost anyway so I can vote Reform and register my displeasure with them. I won't be letting Labour in because they are going to win whatever."
If I were Reform, it's the line I'd be pushing.
Let’s see what happens in Wellingborough!
Blue skies and fluffy white clouds out of my window this morning! Looks good
It's going to be "very interesting times" whatever the results.
I wouldn't feel it an enormous loss if I didn't have to read about Taylor Swift or the MAGA organisation when logging on to PB. I'm happy to say that her oeuvre has largely passed me by.
I wouldn't feel it an enormous loss if I didn't have to read about Taylor Swift or the MAGA organisation when logging on to PB. I'm happy to say that her oeuvre has largely passed me by.
Bring me the blandest thing on the menu.
I have nothing against her career - good luck to her for making very little talent go a very long way. It's the window lickers that comprise her admirers that I find more depressing - the willful self-infantalisation of it all. Like when adults started reading Harry Potter books on the underground, but with enhanced stupidity in keeping with modern times.
She’s not a great singer (solid A-) and doesn’t dance (watch her stomp around the stage). But she’s a good songwriter and a phenomenal entertainer and brand marketer.
Sure as eggs is eggs, youth crime will explode in Brum in coming years.
Tragic to see my home town brought this low...
Sam Freedman @Samfr Birmingham children's services to be cut by around 25%. First wave of cuts include these. This is a very obvious disaster in the making.
This is so utterly stupid. We need to spend more on our kids - throw money at early years and you get it back many times over in money saved in crime and health.
Idiot Tories. Utter fools.
BIrmingham is labour run, its debts are a legacy of several prior administrations, mostly labour.
It also has a large, longstanding, claim for equal pay outstanding.
Still, it is all the Tories fault.
They're just part of the wider systemic problem of local government funding - which is most certainly central government's fault, especially the failure to reform local tax (which means, inter aliis, that KCIII pays less on Buck House than a Blackpool semi owner, which is crazy).
In some cases this is clearly correct but in the case of Brum and Nottingham , for example, it is not. Both Birmingham and Nottinghams woes are largely down to mismanagement.
I said here at the time the NI Cut was announced it was pointless giving with one hand if the govt was going to starve councils with the other.
What I don't understand about this argument is that you are trying to make a partisan spin out of a crisis which was itself a partisan play.
Slashing the money for local government was a deliberate strategy by Osborne. Take away the money that makes them viable, force them to spin out services, the good Tory councils will thrive, the crappy Labour ones will fold, blame Labour councillors and clean up - all whilst saving money for the taxpayer.
It hasn't worked has it? Tory councils going pop just as frequently. And regardless of at which level the cuts are being levelled, they are Tory budget cuts.
Adult social care being a prime example - you cut government funding and told councils to levy it on council tax. Whilst capping the CT rise so that it would be a Big Cut to adult social care. That doesn't save money, it costs money. Reactive crisis spending always costs more.
I don't understand why this isn't clear. Tory councils and councillors at national level (LGA etc) don't pull their punches. Yet the party and its fellow travellers keep insisting the opposite is true. Its more of "the sky really is green, vote Conservative" guff which has them heading for demolition at the election.
No, you, a Lib Dem PPC, were making a partisan comment on a thread about Birmingham and blaming the Tories. I just pointed out this was not solely down to the Tories. I traditionally vote labour although will not vote any more.
With councils there are some who, like Havering, that are well run but do not get sufficient funding from govt. Govt cuts to grants when loading councils up with extra responsibilities then surely something has to give. Especially when they cannot raise adequate funding from council tax. Our Council Leader was making this point on Sunday Politics yesterday.
However among the councils who have struggled due to the problem with govt grant are some, like Nottingham and Birmingham, who have been poorly administered and their financial woes are not down to Westminster. The current labour admin thought they had settled the equal pay claim for 150 million, it is nearer 750 million. There is also a colossal overspend on an IT project. They are unlucky. They have ended up holding the baby.
You seem to be of the view all councils financial plights are down to Westminster and the grant.
The Lib Dems would be the last people I'd vote for a local authority.
Their reputation for shameless duplicity and skulduggery is legendary.
I wouldn't feel it an enormous loss if I didn't have to read about Taylor Swift or the MAGA organisation when logging on to PB. I'm happy to say that her oeuvre has largely passed me by.
You young sophisticate.
Haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate
There’s bad blood between them
I’m tempted to write a Taylor Swift themed header
If T-Swizzle officially endorsed Biden and told the Swifties to vote for him, it would probably be enough to swing the election.
I wouldn't feel it an enormous loss if I didn't have to read about Taylor Swift or the MAGA organisation when logging on to PB. I'm happy to say that her oeuvre has largely passed me by.
You young sophisticate.
Haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate
There’s bad blood between them
I’m tempted to write a Taylor Swift themed header
Hmm - so a bland, motherhood and apple pie style header that bizarrely gets some people fighting mad?
Taylor Swift is stuck in my head as the kind of act that middle class mothers take a fleet of teenage girls to see.
It occurred to me that we.always discuss the danger of complacency for the party leading in the polls. "They've won anyway so I can just stay at home".
But the Tories are doing so badly there might be the opposite effect too.
"The Tories have lost anyway so I can vote Reform and register my displeasure with them. I won't be letting Labour in because they are going to win whatever."
If I were Reform, it's the line I'd be pushing.
Let’s see what happens in Wellingborough!
Blue skies and fluffy white clouds out of my window this morning! Looks good
An easy Labour win and a decent Reform performance.
I'd expect.
Wellingborough may be inverse Hartlepool. Not only have the Tories managed to select the worst candidate possible in the circumstances, they aren't campaigning in fear of what people will say to them.
So the opportunity really is there for ReFUK to come second. If they do? The impossible surely must become possible. They can't carry on with Rishi or they will get demolished - losing Wellingborough to Labour and coming 3rd behind the FUKers really points the way towards ELE.
So for your alt-right hard of thinking Tory MP, what do you do? Is there a foaming right unity candidate you can all coalesce behind? I would expect a visit from Mrs Brady with the pearl handle rather than a formal leadership challenge. But who is next? Braverman? Badenoch? Patel? Shapps?
The other option is the brave one. The top* 25 foaming right Tory MPs approach the lord Nigel, say they will immediately defect if he takes over the leadership. They have little to lose - the polls say they are doomed anyway. So why not roll the dice?
*yes I know. "top" is not a good word when we're talking about MPs with an average IQ of 87
If.
There’s been some talk of Reform UK coming second, but is there any solid evidence to think this might happen? Any news from the consistency? Reform’s best recent by-election result was a mere 5.4%. Third would be a good result for them.
Almost certainly no polling evidence, just reportage. All of the components are there for a seismic shift - local Tory scandal removes shamed MP, Tories select his missus, national collapseothon, no Tory campaign locally as ReFUK say all the things that ex Tory voters like.
Who knows. But we can all confidently predict the Tory score to collapse through the floor. So it depends whether their still Tory but angry voters stay at home or try to shove the party in their preferred direction of travel with a protest vote.
Remember how UKIP were ahead of them in a few polls a decade ago? Like that.
But given all that...
If RefUK can't win in Wellingborough, where the local factors are about as favourable as they can be...
I wouldn't feel it an enormous loss if I didn't have to read about Taylor Swift or the MAGA organisation when logging on to PB. I'm happy to say that her oeuvre has largely passed me by.
You young sophisticate.
Haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate
There’s bad blood between them
I’m tempted to write a Taylor Swift themed header
Ha! The weird thing is that Taylor Swift seems to have done nothing at all and this is all a product of the Trump led insanity.
Sure as eggs is eggs, youth crime will explode in Brum in coming years.
Tragic to see my home town brought this low...
Sam Freedman @Samfr Birmingham children's services to be cut by around 25%. First wave of cuts include these. This is a very obvious disaster in the making.
This is so utterly stupid. We need to spend more on our kids - throw money at early years and you get it back many times over in money saved in crime and health.
Idiot Tories. Utter fools.
BIrmingham is labour run, its debts are a legacy of several prior administrations, mostly labour.
It also has a large, longstanding, claim for equal pay outstanding.
Still, it is all the Tories fault.
They're just part of the wider systemic problem of local government funding - which is most certainly central government's fault, especially the failure to reform local tax (which means, inter aliis, that KCIII pays less on Buck House than a Blackpool semi owner, which is crazy).
In some cases this is clearly correct but in the case of Brum and Nottingham , for example, it is not. Both Birmingham and Nottinghams woes are largely down to mismanagement.
I said here at the time the NI Cut was announced it was pointless giving with one hand if the govt was going to starve councils with the other.
What I don't understand about this argument is that you are trying to make a partisan spin out of a crisis which was itself a partisan play.
Slashing the money for local government was a deliberate strategy by Osborne. Take away the money that makes them viable, force them to spin out services, the good Tory councils will thrive, the crappy Labour ones will fold, blame Labour councillors and clean up - all whilst saving money for the taxpayer.
It hasn't worked has it? Tory councils going pop just as frequently. And regardless of at which level the cuts are being levelled, they are Tory budget cuts.
Adult social care being a prime example - you cut government funding and told councils to levy it on council tax. Whilst capping the CT rise so that it would be a Big Cut to adult social care. That doesn't save money, it costs money. Reactive crisis spending always costs more.
I don't understand why this isn't clear. Tory councils and councillors at national level (LGA etc) don't pull their punches. Yet the party and its fellow travellers keep insisting the opposite is true. Its more of "the sky really is green, vote Conservative" guff which has them heading for demolition at the election.
No, you, a Lib Dem PPC, were making a partisan comment on a thread about Birmingham and blaming the Tories. I just pointed out this was not solely down to the Tories. I traditionally vote labour although will not vote any more.
With councils there are some who, like Havering, that are well run but do not get sufficient funding from govt. Govt cuts to grants when loading councils up with extra responsibilities then surely something has to give. Especially when they cannot raise adequate funding from council tax. Our Council Leader was making this point on Sunday Politics yesterday.
However among the councils who have struggled due to the problem with govt grant are some, like Nottingham and Birmingham, who have been poorly administered and their financial woes are not down to Westminster. The current labour admin thought they had settled the equal pay claim for 150 million, it is nearer 750 million. There is also a colossal overspend on an IT project. They are unlucky. They have ended up holding the baby.
You seem to be of the view all councils financial plights are down to Westminster and the grant.
All? No. The context for all? Yes.
You can't remove the central government grant to the extent that has been done without expecting chaos. That some councils are better run than others is a given. There are exceptional councillors and terrible ones. Exceptional officers and appalling ones. I saw Rochdale council with almost every kind of political leadership you could want and always being crap - officers. Others are well run.
But the unifying factor that binds them all is the removal of their funding just as demand for their services is increased. A policy of George Osborne continued onwards. The reason why so many of our towns and cities are visibly run down and tatty is because of this.
Even the councils blessed with good officers and good councillors are struggling now - you can't kick the can down the road every time - eventually you run out of money.
Sure as eggs is eggs, youth crime will explode in Brum in coming years.
Tragic to see my home town brought this low...
Sam Freedman @Samfr Birmingham children's services to be cut by around 25%. First wave of cuts include these. This is a very obvious disaster in the making.
This is so utterly stupid. We need to spend more on our kids - throw money at early years and you get it back many times over in money saved in crime and health.
Idiot Tories. Utter fools.
BIrmingham is labour run, its debts are a legacy of several prior administrations, mostly labour.
It also has a large, longstanding, claim for equal pay outstanding.
Still, it is all the Tories fault.
They're just part of the wider systemic problem of local government funding - which is most certainly central government's fault, especially the failure to reform local tax (which means, inter aliis, that KCIII pays less on Buck House than a Blackpool semi owner, which is crazy).
In some cases this is clearly correct but in the case of Brum and Nottingham , for example, it is not. Both Birmingham and Nottinghams woes are largely down to mismanagement.
I said here at the time the NI Cut was announced it was pointless giving with one hand if the govt was going to starve councils with the other.
What I don't understand about this argument is that you are trying to make a partisan spin out of a crisis which was itself a partisan play.
Slashing the money for local government was a deliberate strategy by Osborne. Take away the money that makes them viable, force them to spin out services, the good Tory councils will thrive, the crappy Labour ones will fold, blame Labour councillors and clean up - all whilst saving money for the taxpayer.
It hasn't worked has it? Tory councils going pop just as frequently. And regardless of at which level the cuts are being levelled, they are Tory budget cuts.
Adult social care being a prime example - you cut government funding and told councils to levy it on council tax. Whilst capping the CT rise so that it would be a Big Cut to adult social care. That doesn't save money, it costs money. Reactive crisis spending always costs more.
I don't understand why this isn't clear. Tory councils and councillors at national level (LGA etc) don't pull their punches. Yet the party and its fellow travellers keep insisting the opposite is true. Its more of "the sky really is green, vote Conservative" guff which has them heading for demolition at the election.
No, you, a Lib Dem PPC, were making a partisan comment on a thread about Birmingham and blaming the Tories. I just pointed out this was not solely down to the Tories. I traditionally vote labour although will not vote any more.
With councils there are some who, like Havering, that are well run but do not get sufficient funding from govt. Govt cuts to grants when loading councils up with extra responsibilities then surely something has to give. Especially when they cannot raise adequate funding from council tax. Our Council Leader was making this point on Sunday Politics yesterday.
However among the councils who have struggled due to the problem with govt grant are some, like Nottingham and Birmingham, who have been poorly administered and their financial woes are not down to Westminster. The current labour admin thought they had settled the equal pay claim for 150 million, it is nearer 750 million. There is also a colossal overspend on an IT project. They are unlucky. They have ended up holding the baby.
You seem to be of the view all councils financial plights are down to Westminster and the grant.
You may well be a Labour voter now batting for this Iteration of the Tory Party. I always had you as one of the few remaining PB Tory loyalists standing.
I wouldn't feel it an enormous loss if I didn't have to read about Taylor Swift or the MAGA organisation when logging on to PB. I'm happy to say that her oeuvre has largely passed me by.
You young sophisticate.
Haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate
There’s bad blood between them
I’m tempted to write a Taylor Swift themed header
Hmm - so a bland, motherhood and apple pie style header that bizarrely gets some people fighting mad?
Taylor Swift is stuck in my head as the kind of act that middle class mothers take a fleet of teenage girls to see.
But she's been around long enough (she's 34) that the original fleet of teenagers *are* now the teachers and mothers of the *next* fleet of teenage girls.
If we were to see American nuclear warheads stationed in Britain could Trump use them as leverage over us in some way? We need to prepare for the the fact that in less than 12 months we may have a President of the United States who is an effective enemy of this country.
We can't be sure how a second Trump Presidency will play out but the signs of closeness to Putin are ominous. Just as we are seeing greater co-ordination between China, Russia and Iran. Given how much Trump was a China hawk to begin with this seems curious. We may have to accept the freezing of the 'special' relationship.
The best thing would be to given Ukraine more support now to hopefully weaken Putin as much as possible. Ridicule him as Beijing's poodle. Showing fealty towards such a figure would make Trump look ridiculous. And I don't think he wants to look ridiculous.
Alternatively prepare to abandon Ukraine, and join Trump in cosying up to Putin. What's the problem?
There isn't one. Our entire geopolitical orientation is the way it is because America's is the way America's is. That is why we like the Saudis but hate the Iranians and hate the Russians but like the Turks. If Trump succeeds in changing the USA's foreign policy dispensation (the odds are against this actually happening, because the state seems to have its own ideas regardless of the POTUS), then we will change ours, the media will tell us how correct the new way is, and PB's biggest current Putin haters will be accusing us of being traitors if we object.
Sure thing, fool.
Apart from being a bit oversimplified and exaggerated, isn't it basically right what Luckyguy says here? I mean if Trump is elected and if he somehow manages to get the US out of NATO, which way is the UK going to jump? Obviously it would prioritise its alliance with the US, pretty sure Trump would be happy to have the UK tagging along and both countries are in so deep on the 'intelligence' and other levels it wouldn't be that easy to divorce.
If that happens might the history books write that the UK bounced the rest of European NATO into supporting an unwinnable war in Ukraine, which made continental Europe permanently poorer and weaker, fatally weakened NATO, and then flounced off at the first possible opportunity?
"Britain does not have eternal friends or enemies, only eternal interests".
Donald Trump is a highly unreliable partner, and American isolationism may yet leave Britain in a similar situation as in the 1960s, when De Gaulle said "Non" to UK entry into the EEC. By leaving NATO the US would already prove that it cannot be trusted to defend British security. Trump is mostly despised by British voters, and even if it could be made to work, it would not be a happy alliance.
While it is true that the US keeps the UK Trident subs on a very tight leash, the deep and increasing military collaboration with France shows our strategic interests to be more aligned with Europe than many think.
There is also the fact that, despite Brexit, British economic interests are going to remain fully bound up in the European economy.
In the meantime, the EU is preparing to fight and fund the Ukrainian war, whatever the USA does. Putin is un likely to make any kind of breakthrough, as political and economic pressure grows on him. It is just as likely that Russia would have to make terms with Europe in order to avoid its own collapse, and the addition of the resources, even of a weakened Russia, will make the EU the largest economy on the planet. Furthermore, unlike the USA, the EU remains engaged with the global economy such as the fast growing markets of Africa. Neither in technology are the EU doomsayers correct: In aerospace, pharmaceuticals and other key sectors, it has technology that matches or betters that of the USA and China. The USA is reshoring its lost manufacturing, but at the cost of efficiency and innovation, where it now lags behind in areas where it once had an overwhelming competitive advantage. Meanwhile as America isolates, even from NAFTA, Europe, China and India grow stronger symbiotic relationships, as we see in EVs, for example.
There are many doomsayers concerning the EU, but the UK has consistently underestimated the strength of Europe, and overestimated its position concerning the United States. Would an America under Trump care so much for global freedom, as it noisily abandons its own democracy? Certainly the Trump will have abandoned the clear principles of the Atlantic Charter that form the basis for our alliance.
So we should not hurry to make such a critical strategic choice. Our interests are not going to served by an alliance that may be abandoned at any moment by an unstable and authoritarian America. I predict therefore that at least in the medium term, our interests will eventually lead us to be more independent of the USA, with a closer strategic alignment with Europe, while not necessarily being fully aligned with either.
Whether the Euro/Atlantic community gets rebuilt is an open question, but the next few years will require very cool heads in Whitehall and Westminster.
A lot of Americaphobia and Euroworship here, but to be entirely expected from you.
The Trident missile delivery system is shared and pooled with the US but the warheads and submarines themselves are entirely British, as are the crews, equipment and operating procedures.
There isn't a secret "kill switch" on UK weapons anymore than we have one on the US ones stationed on our soil: if we weren't trusted to be safe in traffic we wouldn't have been given access to them in the first place, just as we wouldn't get access and share top grade intelligence with them or act as the (only) Tier 1 partner on the F35.
It occurred to me that we.always discuss the danger of complacency for the party leading in the polls. "They've won anyway so I can just stay at home".
But the Tories are doing so badly there might be the opposite effect too.
"The Tories have lost anyway so I can vote Reform and register my displeasure with them. I won't be letting Labour in because they are going to win whatever."
If I were Reform, it's the line I'd be pushing.
Let’s see what happens in Wellingborough!
Blue skies and fluffy white clouds out of my window this morning! Looks good
An easy Labour win and a decent Reform performance.
I'd expect.
Wellingborough may be inverse Hartlepool. Not only have the Tories managed to select the worst candidate possible in the circumstances, they aren't campaigning in fear of what people will say to them.
So the opportunity really is there for ReFUK to come second. If they do? The impossible surely must become possible. They can't carry on with Rishi or they will get demolished - losing Wellingborough to Labour and coming 3rd behind the FUKers really points the way towards ELE.
So for your alt-right hard of thinking Tory MP, what do you do? Is there a foaming right unity candidate you can all coalesce behind? I would expect a visit from Mrs Brady with the pearl handle rather than a formal leadership challenge. But who is next? Braverman? Badenoch? Patel? Shapps?
The other option is the brave one. The top* 25 foaming right Tory MPs approach the lord Nigel, say they will immediately defect if he takes over the leadership. They have little to lose - the polls say they are doomed anyway. So why not roll the dice?
*yes I know. "top" is not a good word when we're talking about MPs with an average IQ of 87
If.
There’s been some talk of Reform UK coming second, but is there any solid evidence to think this might happen? Any news from the consistency? Reform’s best recent by-election result was a mere 5.4%. Third would be a good result for them.
So far Reform has wildly underperformed its polling numbers in actual elections. That could change due to volatility of a Conservative collapse that does look to be real. Who knows if they could take off?
It occurred to me that we.always discuss the danger of complacency for the party leading in the polls. "They've won anyway so I can just stay at home".
But the Tories are doing so badly there might be the opposite effect too.
"The Tories have lost anyway so I can vote Reform and register my displeasure with them. I won't be letting Labour in because they are going to win whatever."
If I were Reform, it's the line I'd be pushing.
Let’s see what happens in Wellingborough!
Blue skies and fluffy white clouds out of my window this morning! Looks good
An easy Labour win and a decent Reform performance.
I'd expect.
Wellingborough may be inverse Hartlepool. Not only have the Tories managed to select the worst candidate possible in the circumstances, they aren't campaigning in fear of what people will say to them.
So the opportunity really is there for ReFUK to come second. If they do? The impossible surely must become possible. They can't carry on with Rishi or they will get demolished - losing Wellingborough to Labour and coming 3rd behind the FUKers really points the way towards ELE.
So for your alt-right hard of thinking Tory MP, what do you do? Is there a foaming right unity candidate you can all coalesce behind? I would expect a visit from Mrs Brady with the pearl handle rather than a formal leadership challenge. But who is next? Braverman? Badenoch? Patel? Shapps?
The other option is the brave one. The top* 25 foaming right Tory MPs approach the lord Nigel, say they will immediately defect if he takes over the leadership. They have little to lose - the polls say they are doomed anyway. So why not roll the dice?
*yes I know. "top" is not a good word when we're talking about MPs with an average IQ of 87
If.
There’s been some talk of Reform UK coming second, but is there any solid evidence to think this might happen? Any news from the consistency? Reform’s best recent by-election result was a mere 5.4%. Third would be a good result for them.
Almost certainly no polling evidence, just reportage. All of the components are there for a seismic shift - local Tory scandal removes shamed MP, Tories select his missus, national collapseothon, no Tory campaign locally as ReFUK say all the things that ex Tory voters like.
Who knows. But we can all confidently predict the Tory score to collapse through the floor. So it depends whether their still Tory but angry voters stay at home or try to shove the party in their preferred direction of travel with a protest vote.
Remember how UKIP were ahead of them in a few polls a decade ago? Like that.
But given all that...
If RefUK can't win in Wellingborough, where the local factors are about as favourable as they can be...
What's the point of them?
What's the point of any edge-of-the-window faction? They rarely want real power (it dilutes the purity), but they want to be big fish in the pond. On that basis, It will be interesting to see what happens to the left of Labour if Labour win big. Historically, the party has been good at keeping them in the tent, but that may not always be the case.
Sure as eggs is eggs, youth crime will explode in Brum in coming years.
Tragic to see my home town brought this low...
Sam Freedman @Samfr Birmingham children's services to be cut by around 25%. First wave of cuts include these. This is a very obvious disaster in the making.
This is so utterly stupid. We need to spend more on our kids - throw money at early years and you get it back many times over in money saved in crime and health.
Idiot Tories. Utter fools.
BIrmingham is labour run, its debts are a legacy of several prior administrations, mostly labour.
It also has a large, longstanding, claim for equal pay outstanding.
Still, it is all the Tories fault.
I suspect the wider argument is that on the Tories' watch, local authorities including as many Tory administrations as Labour are filing section 114 notices.
But hey I am sure we can blame New Labour or Ed Davey for the last 14 years of mismanagement.
Each council exists in isolation and there are different reasons for the S114's however Birmingham, like Nottingham, is clearly down to poor management by previous councils. In both cases mainly labour.
So you are picking and choosing your section 114 notices. Labour council mismanagement, Tory councils blighted by externalities beyond their control.
Fair enough.
There are many things at play here but the most obvious unifying causal factors to me are
a. central government creating new unfunded burdens and passing them on to local government, b. simultaneously reducing its funding it as a 'quick win' during spending rounds. c. not thinking through the impact of other policies on local government (eg housing regulation leading to reductions in private rented sector supply leading to increased costs of meeting homelessness duties)
All these are government led mistakes. In many ways the best outcome is that the government are forced in to taking responsibility for the situation by Councils declaring bankruptcy and then central gov't have to 'own' the problem they caused via the commissioners they send in (and who incidentally I understand are paid something like £1200 per day to do so).
For a Party that demands decentralisation and democratic accountability that is some claim against the Tories.
Nonetheless, I suspect you are right.
It isn't a claim - its evidenced fact. I offered up Adult Social Care as an example of it in action. The ideological concept was simple - too many councils are wasting money on fripperies, force them to commercialise, people will then vote Tory.
The problem was that the starting point wasn't true...
Ian's weight-loss adventures part 5: Another 1.5kgs off, making it 10.4 off in total in 2024. Another 5 kgs off gets me back to the lightest I have been in Scotland (and shows how I utterly gave up for a few years).
I'm still holding back on exercise, partly because I want to hold something in reserve for once my rate of loss slows, partly because I want to lose more weight and take the pressure off myself before I start pounding up and down.
You weighed less in Scotland as soon as you moved there, because up there, the surface of the globe has less rotational speed…
Sure as eggs is eggs, youth crime will explode in Brum in coming years.
Tragic to see my home town brought this low...
Sam Freedman @Samfr Birmingham children's services to be cut by around 25%. First wave of cuts include these. This is a very obvious disaster in the making.
This is one of Osborne’s “clever schemes” that is causing endless problem
Create a legal obligation for councils to fund care services but take the decisions out of their hands (reduce central government deficit)
Inadequately fund these obligations via central grant
Cap ability to raise council tax (even with the social care premium)
Result is (a) all non mandated services are cut to the bone; (b) councils chase new sources of income like Thurrock, Woking or Westminster; and (c) councils go bankrupt
You need to align obligations/funding/responsibilty. It’s fine to use councils as a delivery mechanism but, if so, it needs to be adequately funded
Government does, of course, provide substantial extra funding to local authorities towards social care - but it's often unreliable and ad hoc, which makes long term planning almost impossible.
Taylor Swift is stuck in my head as the kind of act that middle class mothers take a fleet of teenage girls to see.
This understates the magnitude of the cultural phenomenon by several orders of magnitude.
When, through fucking around on Discord and various other contrivances, I got TS Wembley tickets for the Ukrainians, they were so happy they picked me up while yelling incoherently with joy. (Eastern European girls are very strong as they have to fend off drunk uncles from an early age.)
It occurred to me that we.always discuss the danger of complacency for the party leading in the polls. "They've won anyway so I can just stay at home".
But the Tories are doing so badly there might be the opposite effect too.
"The Tories have lost anyway so I can vote Reform and register my displeasure with them. I won't be letting Labour in because they are going to win whatever."
If I were Reform, it's the line I'd be pushing.
Let’s see what happens in Wellingborough!
Blue skies and fluffy white clouds out of my window this morning! Looks good
An easy Labour win and a decent Reform performance.
I'd expect.
Wellingborough may be inverse Hartlepool. Not only have the Tories managed to select the worst candidate possible in the circumstances, they aren't campaigning in fear of what people will say to them.
So the opportunity really is there for ReFUK to come second. If they do? The impossible surely must become possible. They can't carry on with Rishi or they will get demolished - losing Wellingborough to Labour and coming 3rd behind the FUKers really points the way towards ELE.
So for your alt-right hard of thinking Tory MP, what do you do? Is there a foaming right unity candidate you can all coalesce behind? I would expect a visit from Mrs Brady with the pearl handle rather than a formal leadership challenge. But who is next? Braverman? Badenoch? Patel? Shapps?
The other option is the brave one. The top* 25 foaming right Tory MPs approach the lord Nigel, say they will immediately defect if he takes over the leadership. They have little to lose - the polls say they are doomed anyway. So why not roll the dice?
*yes I know. "top" is not a good word when we're talking about MPs with an average IQ of 87
If.
There’s been some talk of Reform UK coming second, but is there any solid evidence to think this might happen? Any news from the consistency? Reform’s best recent by-election result was a mere 5.4%. Third would be a good result for them.
Almost certainly no polling evidence, just reportage. All of the components are there for a seismic shift - local Tory scandal removes shamed MP, Tories select his missus, national collapseothon, no Tory campaign locally as ReFUK say all the things that ex Tory voters like.
Who knows. But we can all confidently predict the Tory score to collapse through the floor. So it depends whether their still Tory but angry voters stay at home or try to shove the party in their preferred direction of travel with a protest vote.
Remember how UKIP were ahead of them in a few polls a decade ago? Like that.
But given all that...
If RefUK can't win in Wellingborough, where the local factors are about as favourable as they can be...
What's the point of them?
What's the point of any edge-of-the-window faction? They rarely want real power (it dilutes the purity), but they want to be big fish in the pond. On that basis, It will be interesting to see what happens to the left of Labour if Labour win big. Historically, the party has been good at keeping them in the tent, but that may not always be the case.
Especially in Scotland where the Scottish Greens are to some extent a derivative of the old Scottish Socialists - the kind of folk who got kicked out of Labour for being too, erm, pro-working class.
Irrespective of what happens with the SNP, the Scottish Greens are an established party very definitely to the left of Labour - which is a right wing party in Scottish terms and heading further to the right with every SKS pandering to former Tory voters. May not make a direct mark on MP numbers, but it complicates analysis.
Taylor Swift is stuck in my head as the kind of act that middle class mothers take a fleet of teenage girls to see.
This understates the magnitude of the cultural phenomenon by several orders of magnitude.
When, through fucking around on Discord and various other contrivances, I got TS Wembley tickets for the Ukrainians, they were so happy they picked me up while yelling incoherently with joy. (Eastern European girls are very strong as they have to fend off drunk uncles from an early age.)
106 runs is an annoying margin for England. About the number of extra runs they should have got in the first innings.
And they should probably have had another 50 in the second. But equally, Bumrah was in fine form.
I don't think you can say that - 292 is a pretty good 4th innings score against that attack on that pitch. The difference was in the first two innings, and without the exceptional knock by Jaiswal, it would have been a very different game.
The two sides are pretty evenly matched, which is fairly remarkable for an England touring side in India.
Sad news for Rugby Union fans, especially Welsh ones. Barry John has died. He was 79.
Well I thought he had already succumbed. He was a big drinker, lost his licence a few times. Quite a sad final decade, which is unfortunate. He was a great outside half, but retired young at his peak. In our household though he was no Phil Bennett.
Quite a few of the1970s Welsh Triple Crowners are falling off the perch in their mid and late seventies. I genuinely expect the vast intake of Double Dragon, Reverend James and Brains S.A.has taken its toll. They should have listened to the Minister in Chapel on Sunday, played their rugby and avoided the demon drink.
Very sad.
A pub in the town where I live used to get Rev James as a guest beer every so often. Very good drink indeed. Sadly the pub hasn’t got a wheelchair-friendly entrance so I haven’t been able to check whether they still have it for a year or so.
Have you considered asking them to make reasonable adjustments, as is the legal requirement?
Ian's weight-loss adventures part 5: Another 1.5kgs off, making it 10.4 off in total in 2024. Another 5 kgs off gets me back to the lightest I have been in Scotland (and shows how I utterly gave up for a few years).
I'm still holding back on exercise, partly because I want to hold something in reserve for once my rate of loss slows, partly because I want to lose more weight and take the pressure off myself before I start pounding up and down.
You weighed less in Scotland as soon as you moved there, because up there, the surface of the globe has less rotational speed…
Er, wrong way round surely?
No. The reduced centrifugal force doesn’t increase mass, it just reduces the force acting on his mass, whereas under General Relativity his mass actually decreases as his velocity of movement reduces.
Comments
https://twitter.com/BillMelugin_/status/1754320138818748801
(Bill Melugin is a Fox News correspondent.)
Fair enough.
Donald Trump is a highly unreliable partner, and American isolationism may yet leave Britain in a similar situation as in the 1960s, when De Gaulle said "Non" to UK entry into the EEC. By leaving NATO the US would already prove that it cannot be trusted to defend British security. Trump is mostly despised by British voters, and even if it could be made to work, it would not be a happy alliance.
While it is true that the US keeps the UK Trident subs on a very tight leash, the deep and increasing military collaboration with France shows our strategic interests to be more aligned with Europe than many think.
There is also the fact that, despite Brexit, British economic interests are going to remain fully bound up in the European economy.
In the meantime, the EU is preparing to fight and fund the Ukrainian war, whatever the USA does. Putin is un likely to make any kind of breakthrough, as political and economic pressure grows on him. It is just as likely that Russia would have to make terms with Europe in order to avoid its own collapse, and the addition of the resources, even of a weakened Russia, will make the EU the largest economy on the planet. Furthermore, unlike the USA, the EU remains engaged with the global economy such as the fast growing markets of Africa. Neither in technology are the EU doomsayers correct: In aerospace, pharmaceuticals and other key sectors, it has technology that matches or betters that of the USA and China. The USA is reshoring its lost manufacturing, but at the cost of efficiency and innovation, where it now lags behind in areas where it once had an overwhelming competitive advantage. Meanwhile as America isolates, even from NAFTA, Europe, China and India grow stronger symbiotic relationships, as we see in EVs, for example.
There are many doomsayers concerning the EU, but the UK has consistently underestimated the strength of Europe, and overestimated its position concerning the United States. Would an America under Trump care so much for global freedom, as it noisily abandons its own democracy? Certainly the Trump will have abandoned the clear principles of the Atlantic Charter that form the basis for our alliance.
So we should not hurry to make such a critical strategic choice. Our interests are not going to served by an alliance that may be abandoned at any moment by an unstable and authoritarian America. I predict therefore that at least in the medium term, our interests will eventually lead us to be more independent of the USA, with a closer strategic alignment with Europe, while not necessarily being fully aligned with either.
Whether the Euro/Atlantic community gets rebuilt is an open question, but the next few years will require very cool heads in Whitehall and Westminster.
I doubt the tories will come third, although as you say they picked a really crap candidate - something they seem to do with most by elections - so who knows.
If they come third its popcorn time.
Slashing the money for local government was a deliberate strategy by Osborne. Take away the money that makes them viable, force them to spin out services, the good Tory councils will thrive, the crappy Labour ones will fold, blame Labour councillors and clean up - all whilst saving money for the taxpayer.
It hasn't worked has it? Tory councils going pop just as frequently. And regardless of at which level the cuts are being levelled, they are Tory budget cuts.
Adult social care being a prime example - you cut government funding and told councils to levy it on council tax. Whilst capping the CT rise so that it would be a Big Cut to adult social care. That doesn't save money, it costs money. Reactive crisis spending always costs more.
I don't understand why this isn't clear. Tory councils and councillors at national level (LGA etc) don't pull their punches. Yet the party and its fellow travellers keep insisting the opposite is true. Its more of "the sky really is green, vote Conservative" guff which has them heading for demolition at the election.
In addition, Rishi has his own revolver in that situation; call a General Election. (After all, if he's going to have to leave No 10 anyway, a GE buys him a bit more time and a tiny chance.)
There’s been some talk of Reform UK coming second, but is there any solid evidence to think this might happen? Any news from the consistency? Reform’s best recent by-election result was a mere 5.4%. Third would be a good result for them.
https://x.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1754316946403709139?s=20
a. central government creating new unfunded burdens and passing them on to local government,
b. simultaneously reducing its funding it as a 'quick win' during spending rounds.
c. not thinking through the impact of other policies on local government (eg housing regulation leading to reductions in private rented sector supply leading to increased costs of meeting homelessness duties)
All these are government led mistakes. In many ways the best outcome is that the government are forced in to taking responsibility for the situation by Councils declaring bankruptcy and then central gov't have to 'own' the problem they caused via the commissioners they send in (and who incidentally I understand are paid something like £1200 per day to do so).
No, you, a Lib Dem PPC, were making a partisan comment on a thread about Birmingham and blaming the Tories. I just pointed out this was not solely down to the Tories. I traditionally vote labour although will not vote any more.
With councils there are some who, like Havering, that are well run but do not get sufficient funding from govt. Govt cuts to grants when loading councils up with extra responsibilities then surely something has to give. Especially when they cannot raise adequate funding from council tax. Our Council Leader was making this point on Sunday Politics yesterday.
However among the councils who have struggled due to the problem with govt grant are some, like Nottingham and Birmingham, who have been poorly administered and their financial woes are not down to Westminster. The current labour admin thought they had settled the equal pay claim for 150 million, it is nearer 750 million. There is also a colossal overspend on an IT project. They are unlucky. They have ended up holding the baby.
You seem to be of the view all councils financial plights are down to Westminster and the grant.
Billy Joel was another one who stole the show. https://x.com/realbrittain/status/1754364537724100756?s=61
Who knows. But we can all confidently predict the Tory score to collapse through the floor. So it depends whether their still Tory but angry voters stay at home or try to shove the party in their preferred direction of travel with a protest vote.
Remember how UKIP were ahead of them in a few polls a decade ago? Like that.
Nonetheless, I suspect you are right.
Create a legal obligation for councils to fund care services but take the decisions out of their hands (reduce central government deficit)
Inadequately fund these obligations via central grant
Cap ability to raise council tax (even with the social care premium)
Result is (a) all non mandated services are cut to the bone; (b) councils chase new sources of income like Thurrock, Woking or Westminster; and (c) councils go bankrupt
You need to align obligations/funding/responsibilty. It’s fine to use councils as a delivery mechanism but, if so, it needs to be adequately funded
Result: bankruptcy.
So then they promote the merger of local authorities in order to gain non existent economies of scale, yet after the costs of the creation of new UAs have been absorbed the result is: still bankruptcy.
Either the government expands block grants or lifts the cap on the council tax, or reduces the statutory duties. Since it refuses to do any of these things the result will remain: bankruptcy.
Thanks Tories. by the way, did anyone see that three quarters of previously local authority housing (sold at huge discounts to market value to tenants) is now in the private rented sector? Even their previously acknowledged success has turned to ashes.
I’m tempted to write a Taylor Swift themed header
Their reputation for shameless duplicity and skulduggery is legendary.
Taylor Swift is stuck in my head as the kind of act that middle class mothers take a fleet of teenage girls to see.
If RefUK can't win in Wellingborough, where the local factors are about as favourable as they can be...
What's the point of them?
You can't remove the central government grant to the extent that has been done without expecting chaos. That some councils are better run than others is a given. There are exceptional councillors and terrible ones. Exceptional officers and appalling ones. I saw Rochdale council with almost every kind of political leadership you could want and always being crap - officers. Others are well run.
But the unifying factor that binds them all is the removal of their funding just as demand for their services is increased. A policy of George Osborne continued onwards. The reason why so many of our towns and cities are visibly run down and tatty is because of this.
Even the councils blessed with good officers and good councillors are struggling now - you can't kick the can down the road every time - eventually you run out of money.
So what do we do?
Very strange. Unless of course you are 30p Lee.
The Trident missile delivery system is shared and pooled with the US but the warheads and submarines themselves are entirely British, as are the crews, equipment and operating procedures.
There isn't a secret "kill switch" on UK weapons anymore than we have one on the US ones stationed on our soil: if we weren't trusted to be safe in traffic we wouldn't have been given access to them in the first place, just as we wouldn't get access and share top grade intelligence with them or act as the (only) Tier 1 partner on the F35.
The problem was that the starting point wasn't true...
This is quite a good report.
Performance Tracker 2023: Adult social care
The government has provided more funding, but the sector may struggle to address unmet need in the face of rising costs and competing priorities.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/performance-tracker-2023/adult-social-care
When, through fucking around on Discord and various other contrivances, I got TS Wembley tickets for the Ukrainians, they were so happy they picked me up while yelling incoherently with joy. (Eastern European girls are very strong as they have to fend off drunk uncles from an early age.)
Irrespective of what happens with the SNP, the Scottish Greens are an established party very definitely to the left of Labour - which is a right wing party in Scottish terms and heading further to the right with every SKS pandering to former Tory voters. May not make a direct mark on MP numbers, but it complicates analysis.
The difference was in the first two innings, and without the exceptional knock by Jaiswal, it would have been a very different game.
The two sides are pretty evenly matched, which is fairly remarkable for an England touring side in India.
Or is there a good reason why it is impossible?