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The warning signs are there for the GOP for November’s election – politicalbetting.com

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  • Options
    Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,012
    TimS said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:



    If the economy is bad under Labour - I don't see the Tories getting a chance - it really would be Farage or similar scooping up the votes.

    The tories are going to be electorally irrelevant until they deracinate the structural islamophobia that infests their party and recant on their brexit Nibelungentreue.
    That’s simply a way of saying you want a Conservative Party that agrees with you.
    Isn’t that what most of us do when we’re giving a prescription for either of the main parties?

    There are PB comments that recommend something that wouldn’t be to their own taste but they’re few and far between.
    That is correct.

    As a thought experiment, it’s more interesting to offer genuinely good advice.
  • Options
    TimSTimS Posts: 9,896
    kjh said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:



    If the economy is bad under Labour - I don't see the Tories getting a chance - it really would be Farage or similar scooping up the votes.

    The tories are going to be electorally irrelevant until they deracinate the structural islamophobia that infests their party and recant on their brexit Nibelungentreue.
    Today I learned what Nibelungentreue means.
    It is another benefit of PB, well at least for me. I learn lots of new words thanks mainly to @Dura_Ace and @Leon. Sadly I remember very few of them. That and asking for advice. And on that front thanks to everyone who advised on my Las Vegas trip. Now mostly organised and includes Death Valley and the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately one of the sites we were going to see, the Badwater Salt flats, is now a lake due to record rainfall in Death Valley. Typical.

    I'm now planning my next cycling trip in France for the following month. I plan to cycle down (well next to obviously) the Loire. Any tips appreciatively received.
    The salt flats flooded will be spectacular if you’re still going there. This winter’s El Niño has been very good news for California and Nevada given the abject state of aquifers for several years.
  • Options
    kjhkjh Posts: 10,702

    kjh said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Jonathan said:

    You know last week I tipped Patel as next Tory leader at 33/1....

    Liz Truss is also reviving her “fizz with Liz” drinks with MPs in the apparent belief that she can be “queen-maker” in the next leadership contest, though after her trip last week to the United States, where she did an event with Steve Bannon, a former aide to Donald Trump, it is clear she believes she has a more natural audience for her tax-cutting libertarianism there.

    Insiders say Truss may back Priti Patel, a third woman from the Tory right. MPs think Truss wants to be Patel’s chancellor or shadow chancellor.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-mps-plotting-replace-rishi-sunak-tqhkxg60s

    If this happens, Sir Keir Starmer must be the luckiest leader in history.

    When are the conservative Conservatives like Cameron going to stand up and challenge this? At present the traditional wing of the party looks like going down on the ship with Sunak?
    They’re not. It’s over for one nation Tories - they had a decade and a half and they’ve delivered failure; they have no clue how to solve the nation’s problems apart from eVeN morE MiGratIoN and they don’t even have the excuse of being actual lefties, despite espousing entirely left wing beliefs

    At least the brexiteers delivered Brexit. Like it or not

    The only future for the Tories is right wing populism as is happening everywhere else in europe
    I fear they will lurch to the far right but history suggests there's not that much enthusiasm for alt-right populism in this country (fortunately).
    What was Brexit if not a massive vote for alt.right populism? Indeed the biggest vote in British political history
    Right wing? Plenty of left-wing Brexiters. It was - nominally - a single issue referendum.
    Corbyn, Paul Mason and Leon fellow travellers? Well I never.
    Well, quite. And the other Corbyn Bro, too.
    Bastani? Haven’t heard much from him lately.
    Nope, the other Corbyn brother - Piers or Jeremy, whomsoever you didn't mention. Or am I misremembering?
    I try not to think of the Piers one too much, but the favourite PB meme that Corbyn J. was responsible for Brexit because he was a secret Brexiteer who didn’t campaign hard enough for Remain is tattooed on my memory. I recall Sturgeon also got some of that action because Remain only got 62% in Scotland.
    I don't think we can blame Corbyn for Brexit but it is certainly true his absence was noticeable.
    Both Corbyns were long term anti-EU. They see it as a Capitalist structure which specifically blocks some their goals. Piers of course overlays this with some truly demented stuff.

    Getting Jeremy not to say this during the referendum campaign must have been an interesting task.
    As is not uncommon with many things one extreme saw the EU as a capitalist organisation and the other saw it as a socialist organisation. The horseshoe effect.
  • Options
    bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,913
    edited February 25

    If you relied on the BBC for your news you would think it was all done and dusted.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68395414

    Yes on the 8am bulletin they said he had won South Carolina by "nearly 2 to 1".

    I was surprised when I looked at the actual results with 899% of the vote counted it was 1.53 to 1
    To the nearest integer, that’s 2:1. I’d be more worried about how they’ve counted 899% of the vote. I guess they found some more votes for Trump…
  • Options
    TimSTimS Posts: 9,896
    Sean_F said:

    TimS said:

    Sean_F said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:



    If the economy is bad under Labour - I don't see the Tories getting a chance - it really would be Farage or similar scooping up the votes.

    The tories are going to be electorally irrelevant until they deracinate the structural islamophobia that infests their party and recant on their brexit Nibelungentreue.
    That’s simply a way of saying you want a Conservative Party that agrees with you.
    Isn’t that what most of us do when we’re giving a prescription for either of the main parties?

    There are PB comments that recommend something that wouldn’t be to their own taste but they’re few and far between.
    That is correct.

    As a thought experiment, it’s more interesting to offer genuinely good advice.
    There’s probably a German compound noun for assuming the population thinks the same as you do and advising accordingly.
  • Options
    MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 25,400
    Scott_xP said:

    Let's see if we can follow Dowden's reasoning.

    30p Lee's comments were unacceptable, cos he will never be party leader.

    Cruella's comments were fine, cos she might well be.

    It could also be a classist issue. Tory MPs were never " my mates", they considered him no more than an ill-educated serf from Scumbag Comp. Suella on the other hand went to the right school.
  • Options
    kjhkjh Posts: 10,702
    TimS said:

    kjh said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:



    If the economy is bad under Labour - I don't see the Tories getting a chance - it really would be Farage or similar scooping up the votes.

    The tories are going to be electorally irrelevant until they deracinate the structural islamophobia that infests their party and recant on their brexit Nibelungentreue.
    Today I learned what Nibelungentreue means.
    It is another benefit of PB, well at least for me. I learn lots of new words thanks mainly to @Dura_Ace and @Leon. Sadly I remember very few of them. That and asking for advice. And on that front thanks to everyone who advised on my Las Vegas trip. Now mostly organised and includes Death Valley and the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately one of the sites we were going to see, the Badwater Salt flats, is now a lake due to record rainfall in Death Valley. Typical.

    I'm now planning my next cycling trip in France for the following month. I plan to cycle down (well next to obviously) the Loire. Any tips appreciatively received.
    The salt flats flooded will be spectacular if you’re still going there. This winter’s El Niño has been very good news for California and Nevada given the abject state of aquifers for several years.
    I appreciate it might be good for them, but I have seen plenty of lakes. The weather can be bloody inconsiderate sometimes.
  • Options
    TazTaz Posts: 11,373

    Meanwhile the BBC continues it’s weird amplifying relationship with right wing populism.
    Sarah Smith says Trump received almost twice as many votes as Haley, 60-40 is not nearly twice as many.

    Trumpian ramping is a very common activity. Prevalent on PB as well.
    I saw the Sarah Smith report yesterday and was alarmed by her excitability. To think her father was the Greatest Prime Minister we never had...
    Rory was her father ?
  • Options
    Taz said:

    Meanwhile the BBC continues it’s weird amplifying relationship with right wing populism.
    Sarah Smith says Trump received almost twice as many votes as Haley, 60-40 is not nearly twice as many.

    Trumpian ramping is a very common activity. Prevalent on PB as well.
    I saw the Sarah Smith report yesterday and was alarmed by her excitability. To think her father was the Greatest Prime Minister we never had...
    Rory was her father ?
    For light relief, by coincidence I was just watching Rory's spy question on HIGNIFY.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57sQWNXUshc&t=2005s
  • Options
    MJWMJW Posts: 1,398
    HYUFD said:

    You know last week I tipped Patel as next Tory leader at 33/1....

    Liz Truss is also reviving her “fizz with Liz” drinks with MPs in the apparent belief that she can be “queen-maker” in the next leadership contest, though after her trip last week to the United States, where she did an event with Steve Bannon, a former aide to Donald Trump, it is clear she believes she has a more natural audience for her tax-cutting libertarianism there.

    Insiders say Truss may back Priti Patel, a third woman from the Tory right. MPs think Truss wants to be Patel’s chancellor or shadow chancellor.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-mps-plotting-replace-rishi-sunak-tqhkxg60s

    If this happens, Sir Keir Starmer must be the luckiest leader in history.

    Although many also thought Margaret Thatcher was an unelectable hard right-winger too when she replaced Heath as Conservative leader and became Leader of the Opposition in 1975.

    If the economy is bad under a Labour government all bets are off.

    I doubt enough Tory MPs vote for Patel to put her in the final two to get to the membership though
    The difference here though is twofold - firstly we've already done Thatcherism. There simply isn't the space to shift into there was then. Nor does Labour seem likely to repeat its 1980-83 madness.

    Secondly, if the economy is still bad, Labour will entirely justifiably blame 14 years of Tory government and the policies they pursued and ask for more time and a mandate for stronger action to restore the country's fortunes.

    A choice between a Labour that promises to do more in its second term and go further in undoing the mistakes of the past decade seems fairly unlikely to lose against a Tory party that still hasn't come to terms with said mistakes and wants to repeat them in stereo. Running the 2029 election on 'Liz Truss and/or Suella are right'. Well good luck with that. It'd be like Labour running on Corbyn being right now.

    There could be a disaster that's directly attributable to Labour, but absent that, if things are still just a bit rubbish, then the Tories have a huge hole to dig themselves out of, and seemingly no idea how deep that hole is with those of working age, and thus the growing part of the electorate.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,173

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:



    If the economy is bad under Labour - I don't see the Tories getting a chance - it really would be Farage or similar scooping up the votes.

    The tories are going to be electorally irrelevant until they deracinate the structural islamophobia that infests their party and recant on their brexit Nibelungentreue.
    Today I learned what Nibelungentreue means.
    Me too, a cracker
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,173

    Good morning

    I have just seen the front page of the Daily Mail and whilst I do not agree with Angela Rayner politically, their attempt to smear her over the sale of her home is a complete non story

    Listening to Andy Burnham suggesting the whip system should be discontinued is an interesting idea

    It does however that Labour are just as big grifters as the Tories, two cheeks of the same erse.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,154

    Apols if already discussed, this is going to castrate Trump and other members of the Trump crime family.

    Donald Trump’s penalties in the New York civil fraud case for manipulating the value of his properties to obtain advantageous loan and insurance rates were formally set at more than $454m on Friday.

    The judgment, which includes $354m in penalties plus $100m in pre-judgement interest following the three-month, non-jury trial that concluded on 16 February, will continue to accrue interest if the former president fails to pay.

    Trump has two options to meet the state’s demand: to pay the amount in full, or secure a $35m bond against his assets, which might include the Fifth Avenue Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street, his Mar-a-Lago estate, or a number of golf courses in the US.

    In the finalized ruling Judge Arthur Engoron also ordered Trump’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, to each pay nearly $4.7m, and the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, to pay $1.1 m, all including interest.


    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/23/trump-penalties-new-york-fraud-case

    A bond against those assets could be deemed an event that allows the loans on those properties to be called in. If he fails to put the cash/bond up within the 30 days, then New York state can set about putting liens on his properties prior to a sale.

    Which would definitely be deemed an event that allows the loans on those properties to be called in.

    Trump goes on trial on felony charges next month around the Stormy Daniels hush-money payments and consequent false accounting. It could be a really, really bad month for him.

    And a really, really good month for Nicky Haley.

    I think there is a material risk that a health-related event - actual or contrived - will mean Trump withdraws from the race. The pressure he is under is massive and would fell a guy thirty years younger. And the pressure is taking a toll. His "speeches" have already descended into the weirdest word salad. I don't see that improving.
    Trump is so far down the road to La La Land that he is oblivious to the chaos surrounding him. If he can drag this old nonsense out to 20th January he is home and hosed. All his troubles disappear.
    But he can't.
  • Options
    TazTaz Posts: 11,373

    Taz said:

    Meanwhile the BBC continues it’s weird amplifying relationship with right wing populism.
    Sarah Smith says Trump received almost twice as many votes as Haley, 60-40 is not nearly twice as many.

    Trumpian ramping is a very common activity. Prevalent on PB as well.
    I saw the Sarah Smith report yesterday and was alarmed by her excitability. To think her father was the Greatest Prime Minister we never had...
    Rory was her father ?
    For light relief, by coincidence I was just watching Rory's spy question on HIGNIFY.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57sQWNXUshc&t=2005s
    That’s really comical. Very good.
  • Options
    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,065

    Apols if already discussed, this is going to castrate Trump and other members of the Trump crime family.

    Donald Trump’s penalties in the New York civil fraud case for manipulating the value of his properties to obtain advantageous loan and insurance rates were formally set at more than $454m on Friday.

    The judgment, which includes $354m in penalties plus $100m in pre-judgement interest following the three-month, non-jury trial that concluded on 16 February, will continue to accrue interest if the former president fails to pay.

    Trump has two options to meet the state’s demand: to pay the amount in full, or secure a $35m bond against his assets, which might include the Fifth Avenue Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street, his Mar-a-Lago estate, or a number of golf courses in the US.

    In the finalized ruling Judge Arthur Engoron also ordered Trump’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, to each pay nearly $4.7m, and the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, to pay $1.1 m, all including interest.


    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/23/trump-penalties-new-york-fraud-case

    A bond against those assets could be deemed an event that allows the loans on those properties to be called in. If he fails to put the cash/bond up within the 30 days, then New York state can set about putting liens on his properties prior to a sale.

    Which would definitely be deemed an event that allows the loans on those properties to be called in.

    Trump goes on trial on felony charges next month around the Stormy Daniels hush-money payments and consequent false accounting. It could be a really, really bad month for him.

    And a really, really good month for Nicky Haley.

    I think there is a material risk that a health-related event - actual or contrived - will mean Trump withdraws from the race. The pressure he is under is massive and would fell a guy thirty years younger. And the pressure is taking a toll. His "speeches" have already descended into the weirdest word salad. I don't see that improving.
    Trump is so far down the road to La La Land that he is oblivious to the chaos surrounding him. If he can drag this old nonsense out to 20th January he is home and hosed. All his troubles disappear.
    Won't he just do Chapter 11 like Alex Jones?

  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 20,183
    edited February 25
    Nigelb said:

    viewcode said:

    Nigelb said:

    If you relied on the BBC for your news you would think it was all done and dusted.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68395414

    Yes on the 8am bulletin they said he had won South Carolina by "nearly 2 to 1".

    I was surprised when I looked at the actual results with 899% of the vote counted it was 1.53 to 1
    The BBC tends to report Trump spin with even less scepticism than does the NYT.
    It's a weird (but very clear) dynamic given that neither are particularly right wing organisations.
    Clickbait

    (Edit: NYT/BBC, not you!)
    Yes, but I think it goes beyond that.
    For example, there's a recent Today podcast where Amol Rahan and Nick Robinson discuss their near certainty that Trump will be re-elected. It's as though they've assimilated the clickbait.
    You see it a lot on PB, from purported leftwingers in particular. See also, stating with certainty that the general election will be in January and that the ‘client media’ will ensure a Sunak win therein. It’s almost as if these people want it to happen.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,173
    kjh said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:



    If the economy is bad under Labour - I don't see the Tories getting a chance - it really would be Farage or similar scooping up the votes.

    The tories are going to be electorally irrelevant until they deracinate the structural islamophobia that infests their party and recant on their brexit Nibelungentreue.
    Today I learned what Nibelungentreue means.
    It is another benefit of PB, well at least for me. I learn lots of new words thanks mainly to @Dura_Ace and @Leon. Sadly I remember very few of them. That and asking for advice. And on that front thanks to everyone who advised on my Las Vegas trip. Now mostly organised and includes Death Valley and the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately one of the sites we were going to see, the Badwater Salt flats, is now a lake due to record rainfall in Death Valley. Typical.

    I'm now planning my next cycling trip in France for the following month. I plan to cycle down (well next to obviously) the Loire. Any tips appreciatively received.
    Was a while ago but we stayed in Beaugency which was very pleasant , may well have changed nowadays, it was handy for Chambord and Chenonceau to name but a few Chateau's.
  • Options
    bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,913
    Dura_Ace said:

    Apols if already discussed, this is going to castrate Trump and other members of the Trump crime family.

    Donald Trump’s penalties in the New York civil fraud case for manipulating the value of his properties to obtain advantageous loan and insurance rates were formally set at more than $454m on Friday.

    The judgment, which includes $354m in penalties plus $100m in pre-judgement interest following the three-month, non-jury trial that concluded on 16 February, will continue to accrue interest if the former president fails to pay.

    Trump has two options to meet the state’s demand: to pay the amount in full, or secure a $35m bond against his assets, which might include the Fifth Avenue Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street, his Mar-a-Lago estate, or a number of golf courses in the US.

    In the finalized ruling Judge Arthur Engoron also ordered Trump’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, to each pay nearly $4.7m, and the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, to pay $1.1 m, all including interest.


    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/23/trump-penalties-new-york-fraud-case

    A bond against those assets could be deemed an event that allows the loans on those properties to be called in. If he fails to put the cash/bond up within the 30 days, then New York state can set about putting liens on his properties prior to a sale.

    Which would definitely be deemed an event that allows the loans on those properties to be called in.

    Trump goes on trial on felony charges next month around the Stormy Daniels hush-money payments and consequent false accounting. It could be a really, really bad month for him.

    And a really, really good month for Nicky Haley.

    I think there is a material risk that a health-related event - actual or contrived - will mean Trump withdraws from the race. The pressure he is under is massive and would fell a guy thirty years younger. And the pressure is taking a toll. His "speeches" have already descended into the weirdest word salad. I don't see that improving.
    Trump is so far down the road to La La Land that he is oblivious to the chaos surrounding him. If he can drag this old nonsense out to 20th January he is home and hosed. All his troubles disappear.
    Won't he just do Chapter 11 like Alex Jones?

    It’s not going that well for Alex Jones: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/bankruptcy-law/sandy-hook-families-vote-to-liquidate-alex-jones-bankrupt-estate
  • Options

    Good morning

    I have just seen the front page of the Daily Mail and whilst I do not agree with Angela Rayner politically, their attempt to smear her over the sale of her home is a complete non story

    Listening to Andy Burnham suggesting the whip system should be discontinued is an interesting idea

    The fascinating thing about the Heil's story isn't the story, its the rationale behind the story.

    This isn't a scoop, a big expose which will drive the headlines. Its available information which having picked away at it they have decided to package and weaponise.

    Well I say weaponise. "Weaponise" is more accurate. Their side is going to lose the election. Badly. Their leading strategy over the last few years has been to weaponise stupidity and ignorance, and with great success.

    It must be very confusing for them to find that no matter how stupid the story, no matter how elegantly they package it to feed into the ignorance of readers, nobody is falling for it any more. Rayner is a Hypocrite! Why aren't people flocking to vote Conservative?

    Sadly for the landed money who own right wing clickbait media outlets, their reach is now insignificant. I expect we will see an ever-increasing number of embarrassing (for them) "stories" put out in increasingly shrill tones of desperation, as the threat to their owner's bank balance gets bigger and bigger as that ELE election defeat gets closer and closer.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,173

    Taz said:

    Scott_xP said:


    @Parody_PM

    Oliver Dowden clarifies the situation: Lee Anderson is not racist, but the words he spoke were, although similar words are not racist when Suella Braverman uses them.
    #TrevorPhillips #BBCLauraK

    The same defence labour used for Azhar Ali

    It’s rotten. Both parties position on this is vile.

    It’s time for this crap,to be called out for what it is and neither party excuse their bigots and, quite frankly if neither of them are bigots (and it is perfectly plausible) the weaponising it for electoral advantage is little short of disgusting.

    It is a battle as when an MP like Robert Buckland rightly calls it out he’s subjected to all,sorts of vile twitter slurs.
    Yep. Meanwhile where we have found ourselves is having to question the boundaries between the right to protest and harassment. I watched the Twix clip of the Labour fundraiser beseiged by pro-Hamas protestors, unwilling to let anyone exist unless they agree with them.

    On Wednesday it is reported that the mob outside Westminster demanded the right to lobby their MPs - and think it anti-democratic not to be allowed into the central lobby as a mob.

    Parliament passed a motion calling fort an immediate end to the fighting. Which it would seem isn't good enough for the mob. Perhaps its time we start arresting the more in your face ones - those screaming hate at people inside a Costa in Woking as an example for "funding literal genocide"
    Time to get the riot act out and if they don't disperse beat the crap out of them. Anyone obstructing the public going about their lawful way should get a good thrashing and jailed. Time we got some real police in this country instead of woke rainbow fan dancers.
  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 20,183

    Nigelb said:

    If you relied on the BBC for your news you would think it was all done and dusted.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68395414

    Yes on the 8am bulletin they said he had won South Carolina by "nearly 2 to 1".

    I was surprised when I looked at the actual results with 899% of the vote counted it was 1.53 to 1
    The BBC tends to report Trump spin with even less scepticism than does the NYT.
    It's a weird (but very clear) dynamic given that neither are particularly right wing organisations.
    Trump drives engagement and the BBC are so terrified of being accused of left-wing bias that they overcompensate.

    Also, in this case, there's also a factor of having a low opinion of the mathematical abilities of their audience. The margin is 3:2, but that ratio is more complicated than 2:1, and it's closer to 2:1 than 50:50, so that's what they've gone for.
    Why not just say Trump won six in ten votes or 60%, which surely most of Joe Public could grasp, rather than making up a stat that is completely misleading?
  • Options

    Dura_Ace said:

    Apols if already discussed, this is going to castrate Trump and other members of the Trump crime family.

    Donald Trump’s penalties in the New York civil fraud case for manipulating the value of his properties to obtain advantageous loan and insurance rates were formally set at more than $454m on Friday.

    The judgment, which includes $354m in penalties plus $100m in pre-judgement interest following the three-month, non-jury trial that concluded on 16 February, will continue to accrue interest if the former president fails to pay.

    Trump has two options to meet the state’s demand: to pay the amount in full, or secure a $35m bond against his assets, which might include the Fifth Avenue Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street, his Mar-a-Lago estate, or a number of golf courses in the US.

    In the finalized ruling Judge Arthur Engoron also ordered Trump’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, to each pay nearly $4.7m, and the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, to pay $1.1 m, all including interest.


    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/23/trump-penalties-new-york-fraud-case

    A bond against those assets could be deemed an event that allows the loans on those properties to be called in. If he fails to put the cash/bond up within the 30 days, then New York state can set about putting liens on his properties prior to a sale.

    Which would definitely be deemed an event that allows the loans on those properties to be called in.

    Trump goes on trial on felony charges next month around the Stormy Daniels hush-money payments and consequent false accounting. It could be a really, really bad month for him.

    And a really, really good month for Nicky Haley.

    I think there is a material risk that a health-related event - actual or contrived - will mean Trump withdraws from the race. The pressure he is under is massive and would fell a guy thirty years younger. And the pressure is taking a toll. His "speeches" have already descended into the weirdest word salad. I don't see that improving.
    Trump is so far down the road to La La Land that he is oblivious to the chaos surrounding him. If he can drag this old nonsense out to 20th January he is home and hosed. All his troubles disappear.
    Won't he just do Chapter 11 like Alex Jones?

    It’s not going that well for Alex Jones: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/bankruptcy-law/sandy-hook-families-vote-to-liquidate-alex-jones-bankrupt-estate
    Coming soon to a Trump near you

  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,173
    Carnyx said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:



    If the economy is bad under Labour - I don't see the Tories getting a chance - it really would be Farage or similar scooping up the votes.

    The tories are going to be electorally irrelevant until they deracinate the structural islamophobia that infests their party and recant on their brexit Nibelungentreue.
    Today I learned what Nibelungentreue means.
    Kadavergehorsam is also a good one.
    must be flogging a dead horse before I look it up
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,173
    malcolmg said:

    Carnyx said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:



    If the economy is bad under Labour - I don't see the Tories getting a chance - it really would be Farage or similar scooping up the votes.

    The tories are going to be electorally irrelevant until they deracinate the structural islamophobia that infests their party and recant on their brexit Nibelungentreue.
    Today I learned what Nibelungentreue means.
    Kadavergehorsam is also a good one.
    must be flogging a dead horse before I look it up
    Got the dead bit at least
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,699
    kjh said:

    kjh said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Jonathan said:

    You know last week I tipped Patel as next Tory leader at 33/1....

    Liz Truss is also reviving her “fizz with Liz” drinks with MPs in the apparent belief that she can be “queen-maker” in the next leadership contest, though after her trip last week to the United States, where she did an event with Steve Bannon, a former aide to Donald Trump, it is clear she believes she has a more natural audience for her tax-cutting libertarianism there.

    Insiders say Truss may back Priti Patel, a third woman from the Tory right. MPs think Truss wants to be Patel’s chancellor or shadow chancellor.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-mps-plotting-replace-rishi-sunak-tqhkxg60s

    If this happens, Sir Keir Starmer must be the luckiest leader in history.

    When are the conservative Conservatives like Cameron going to stand up and challenge this? At present the traditional wing of the party looks like going down on the ship with Sunak?
    They’re not. It’s over for one nation Tories - they had a decade and a half and they’ve delivered failure; they have no clue how to solve the nation’s problems apart from eVeN morE MiGratIoN and they don’t even have the excuse of being actual lefties, despite espousing entirely left wing beliefs

    At least the brexiteers delivered Brexit. Like it or not

    The only future for the Tories is right wing populism as is happening everywhere else in europe
    I fear they will lurch to the far right but history suggests there's not that much enthusiasm for alt-right populism in this country (fortunately).
    What was Brexit if not a massive vote for alt.right populism? Indeed the biggest vote in British political history
    Right wing? Plenty of left-wing Brexiters. It was - nominally - a single issue referendum.
    Corbyn, Paul Mason and Leon fellow travellers? Well I never.
    Well, quite. And the other Corbyn Bro, too.
    Bastani? Haven’t heard much from him lately.
    Nope, the other Corbyn brother - Piers or Jeremy, whomsoever you didn't mention. Or am I misremembering?
    I try not to think of the Piers one too much, but the favourite PB meme that Corbyn J. was responsible for Brexit because he was a secret Brexiteer who didn’t campaign hard enough for Remain is tattooed on my memory. I recall Sturgeon also got some of that action because Remain only got 62% in Scotland.
    I don't think we can blame Corbyn for Brexit but it is certainly true his absence was noticeable.
    Both Corbyns were long term anti-EU. They see it as a Capitalist structure which specifically blocks some their goals. Piers of course overlays this with some truly demented stuff.

    Getting Jeremy not to say this during the referendum campaign must have been an interesting task.
    As is not uncommon with many things one extreme saw the EU as a capitalist organisation and the other saw it as a socialist organisation. The horseshoe effect.
    More, I think, that both see the EU (and related structures) as an obstacle to what they want.

    Do you recall the hard left wing angst over the ECHR related reversal of the expropriation of the Greek Royal family?

    Yes, that ECHR.
  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 20,183

    Apols if already discussed, this is going to castrate Trump and other members of the Trump crime family.

    Donald Trump’s penalties in the New York civil fraud case for manipulating the value of his properties to obtain advantageous loan and insurance rates were formally set at more than $454m on Friday.

    The judgment, which includes $354m in penalties plus $100m in pre-judgement interest following the three-month, non-jury trial that concluded on 16 February, will continue to accrue interest if the former president fails to pay.

    Trump has two options to meet the state’s demand: to pay the amount in full, or secure a $35m bond against his assets, which might include the Fifth Avenue Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street, his Mar-a-Lago estate, or a number of golf courses in the US.

    In the finalized ruling Judge Arthur Engoron also ordered Trump’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, to each pay nearly $4.7m, and the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, to pay $1.1 m, all including interest.


    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/23/trump-penalties-new-york-fraud-case

    A bond against those assets could be deemed an event that allows the loans on those properties to be called in. If he fails to put the cash/bond up within the 30 days, then New York state can set about putting liens on his properties prior to a sale.

    Which would definitely be deemed an event that allows the loans on those properties to be called in.

    Trump goes on trial on felony charges next month around the Stormy Daniels hush-money payments and consequent false accounting. It could be a really, really bad month for him.

    And a really, really good month for Nicky Haley.

    I think there is a material risk that a health-related event - actual or contrived - will mean Trump withdraws from the race. The pressure he is under is massive and would fell a guy thirty years younger. And the pressure is taking a toll. His "speeches" have already descended into the weirdest word salad. I don't see that improving.
    Trump is so far down the road to La La Land that he is oblivious to the chaos surrounding him. If he can drag this old nonsense out to 20th January he is home and hosed. All his troubles disappear.
    But he can't.
    Indeed, this would appear to be the key point Mark (and you have been sensibly consistent on this). But many on PB prefer doom porn to reason. Odd.
  • Options
    MJW said:

    HYUFD said:

    You know last week I tipped Patel as next Tory leader at 33/1....

    Liz Truss is also reviving her “fizz with Liz” drinks with MPs in the apparent belief that she can be “queen-maker” in the next leadership contest, though after her trip last week to the United States, where she did an event with Steve Bannon, a former aide to Donald Trump, it is clear she believes she has a more natural audience for her tax-cutting libertarianism there.

    Insiders say Truss may back Priti Patel, a third woman from the Tory right. MPs think Truss wants to be Patel’s chancellor or shadow chancellor.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-mps-plotting-replace-rishi-sunak-tqhkxg60s

    If this happens, Sir Keir Starmer must be the luckiest leader in history.

    Although many also thought Margaret Thatcher was an unelectable hard right-winger too when she replaced Heath as Conservative leader and became Leader of the Opposition in 1975.

    If the economy is bad under a Labour government all bets are off.

    I doubt enough Tory MPs vote for Patel to put her in the final two to get to the membership though
    The difference here though is twofold - firstly we've already done Thatcherism. There simply isn't the space to shift into there was then. Nor does Labour seem likely to repeat its 1980-83 madness.

    Secondly, if the economy is still bad, Labour will entirely justifiably blame 14 years of Tory government and the policies they pursued and ask for more time and a mandate for stronger action to restore the country's fortunes.

    A choice between a Labour that promises to do more in its second term and go further in undoing the mistakes of the past decade seems fairly unlikely to lose against a Tory party that still hasn't come to terms with said mistakes and wants to repeat them in stereo. Running the 2029 election on 'Liz Truss and/or Suella are right'. Well good luck with that. It'd be like Labour running on Corbyn being right now.

    There could be a disaster that's directly attributable to Labour, but absent that, if things are still just a bit rubbish, then the Tories have a huge hole to dig themselves out of, and seemingly no idea how deep that hole is with those of working age, and thus the growing part of the electorate.
    On the last bit it would help if the Conservatives thought that the achievement of full employment was a good thing.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,173
    TimS said:

    kjh said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:



    If the economy is bad under Labour - I don't see the Tories getting a chance - it really would be Farage or similar scooping up the votes.

    The tories are going to be electorally irrelevant until they deracinate the structural islamophobia that infests their party and recant on their brexit Nibelungentreue.
    Today I learned what Nibelungentreue means.
    It is another benefit of PB, well at least for me. I learn lots of new words thanks mainly to @Dura_Ace and @Leon. Sadly I remember very few of them. That and asking for advice. And on that front thanks to everyone who advised on my Las Vegas trip. Now mostly organised and includes Death Valley and the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately one of the sites we were going to see, the Badwater Salt flats, is now a lake due to record rainfall in Death Valley. Typical.

    I'm now planning my next cycling trip in France for the following month. I plan to cycle down (well next to obviously) the Loire. Any tips appreciatively received.
    The salt flats flooded will be spectacular if you’re still going there. This winter’s El Niño has been very good news for California and Nevada given the abject state of aquifers for several years.
    The salt flats were incredible. many years ago I drove about the desert there , tea kettle junction etc , I had my map upside down and took a nice route that went over hte mountains instead of around, ended on a road that said no vehicles, what a journey that was with wife and daughter screaming as we pointed vertically down on a track not wide enough for our 4x4. Finally came out on a flat part and saw a campfire and asked the guy where we were, he said we could not have come that way as tehre was no road whatsoever. Anyway got to a motel and a pizza and a bottle of vodka soothed the nerves ( daughter excluded from the vodka).
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,677
    malcolmg said:

    TimS said:

    kjh said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:



    If the economy is bad under Labour - I don't see the Tories getting a chance - it really would be Farage or similar scooping up the votes.

    The tories are going to be electorally irrelevant until they deracinate the structural islamophobia that infests their party and recant on their brexit Nibelungentreue.
    Today I learned what Nibelungentreue means.
    It is another benefit of PB, well at least for me. I learn lots of new words thanks mainly to @Dura_Ace and @Leon. Sadly I remember very few of them. That and asking for advice. And on that front thanks to everyone who advised on my Las Vegas trip. Now mostly organised and includes Death Valley and the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately one of the sites we were going to see, the Badwater Salt flats, is now a lake due to record rainfall in Death Valley. Typical.

    I'm now planning my next cycling trip in France for the following month. I plan to cycle down (well next to obviously) the Loire. Any tips appreciatively received.
    The salt flats flooded will be spectacular if you’re still going there. This winter’s El Niño has been very good news for California and Nevada given the abject state of aquifers for several years.
    The salt flats were incredible. many years ago I drove about the desert there , tea kettle junction etc , I had my map upside down and took a nice route that went over hte mountains instead of around, ended on a road that said no vehicles, what a journey that was with wife and daughter screaming as we pointed vertically down on a track not wide enough for our 4x4. Finally came out on a flat part and saw a campfire and asked the guy where we were, he said we could not have come that way as tehre was no road whatsoever. Anyway got to a motel and a pizza and a bottle of vodka soothed the nerves ( daughter excluded from the vodka).
    The salt flats of Bolivia - Salar de Uyuni - are stupendous
  • Options
    Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 33,254
    @AngelaRayner
    It’s clear that Lord Ashcroft and his friends not only take an unhealthy interest in my family - but want to kick down at people like me who graft hard in tough circumstances to get on in life. I won’t let them.
  • Options
    FairlieredFairliered Posts: 4,036

    Nigelb said:

    If you relied on the BBC for your news you would think it was all done and dusted.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68395414

    Yes on the 8am bulletin they said he had won South Carolina by "nearly 2 to 1".

    I was surprised when I looked at the actual results with 899% of the vote counted it was 1.53 to 1
    The BBC tends to report Trump spin with even less scepticism than does the NYT.
    It's a weird (but very clear) dynamic given that neither are particularly right wing organisations.
    Trump drives engagement and the BBC are so terrified of being accused of left-wing bias that they overcompensate.

    Also, in this case, there's also a factor of having a low opinion of the mathematical abilities of their audience. The margin is 3:2, but that ratio is more complicated than 2:1, and it's closer to 2:1 than 50:50, so that's what they've gone for.
    Why not just say Trump won six in ten votes or 60%, which surely most of Joe Public could grasp, rather than making up a stat that is completely misleading?
    Joe Public could grasp it. BBC journalists couldn’t.
  • Options
    malcolmg said:

    Taz said:

    Scott_xP said:


    @Parody_PM

    Oliver Dowden clarifies the situation: Lee Anderson is not racist, but the words he spoke were, although similar words are not racist when Suella Braverman uses them.
    #TrevorPhillips #BBCLauraK

    The same defence labour used for Azhar Ali

    It’s rotten. Both parties position on this is vile.

    It’s time for this crap,to be called out for what it is and neither party excuse their bigots and, quite frankly if neither of them are bigots (and it is perfectly plausible) the weaponising it for electoral advantage is little short of disgusting.

    It is a battle as when an MP like Robert Buckland rightly calls it out he’s subjected to all,sorts of vile twitter slurs.
    Yep. Meanwhile where we have found ourselves is having to question the boundaries between the right to protest and harassment. I watched the Twix clip of the Labour fundraiser beseiged by pro-Hamas protestors, unwilling to let anyone exist unless they agree with them.

    On Wednesday it is reported that the mob outside Westminster demanded the right to lobby their MPs - and think it anti-democratic not to be allowed into the central lobby as a mob.

    Parliament passed a motion calling fort an immediate end to the fighting. Which it would seem isn't good enough for the mob. Perhaps its time we start arresting the more in your face ones - those screaming hate at people inside a Costa in Woking as an example for "funding literal genocide"
    Time to get the riot act out and if they don't disperse beat the crap out of them. Anyone obstructing the public going about their lawful way should get a good thrashing and jailed. Time we got some real police in this country instead of woke rainbow fan dancers.
    The police have all the powers they need. But the Tories have axed the police budgets so hard that there aren't enough cops, or police stations, or capacity through the courts to do anything. They can't confess to gutting law and order so instead we get virtue signalling and new laws they can't enforce to replace the old laws they can't enforce.

    The reason why Dodds et al cower from the protestors is that they fear social media. Every Single One of these hate mobs has someone videoing it. Shouting their stupid slogans. If they catch a politician walking they ask utterly stupid questions.

    Rayner et al do not respond because they know that if they engage with said hate mobber and respond in kind ("you know that's fucking mental, right?") it will be clipped out of all context.

    The solution? Have a staffer also videoing everything they do. Tony Benn infamously recorded every interview he ever gave so that he had evidence if he was quoted out of context. Politicians need to do the same because we know how clickbait scum people like the person running the official Conservative Party TwiX feed can make mischief.
  • Options

    Good morning

    I have just seen the front page of the Daily Mail and whilst I do not agree with Angela Rayner politically, their attempt to smear her over the sale of her home is a complete non story

    Listening to Andy Burnham suggesting the whip system should be discontinued is an interesting idea

    The fascinating thing about the Heil's story isn't the story, its the rationale behind the story.

    This isn't a scoop, a big expose which will drive the headlines. Its available information which having picked away at it they have decided to package and weaponise.

    Well I say weaponise. "Weaponise" is more accurate. Their side is going to lose the election. Badly. Their leading strategy over the last few years has been to weaponise stupidity and ignorance, and with great success.

    It must be very confusing for them to find that no matter how stupid the story, no matter how elegantly they package it to feed into the ignorance of readers, nobody is falling for it any more. Rayner is a Hypocrite! Why aren't people flocking to vote Conservative?

    Sadly for the landed money who own right wing clickbait media outlets, their reach is now insignificant. I expect we will see an ever-increasing number of embarrassing (for them) "stories" put out in increasingly shrill tones of desperation, as the threat to their owner's bank balance gets bigger and bigger as that ELE election defeat gets closer and closer.
    I think that saying council house sales are bad policy but people are entitled to do what they can for their families under current rules will be seen as normal by most people - like Healey saying he wanted short waiting lists for everyone, but when they were long he'd pay for his wife to go private if it prevented her being in pain.
    Is the Heil saying that the solution to today's Massive Housing Crisis is to sell off the remaining council / HA properties...?
  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 20,183

    Good morning

    I have just seen the front page of the Daily Mail and whilst I do not agree with Angela Rayner politically, their attempt to smear her over the sale of her home is a complete non story

    Listening to Andy Burnham suggesting the whip system should be discontinued is an interesting idea

    The fascinating thing about the Heil's story isn't the story, its the rationale behind the story.

    This isn't a scoop, a big expose which will drive the headlines. Its available information which having picked away at it they have decided to package and weaponise.

    Well I say weaponise. "Weaponise" is more accurate. Their side is going to lose the election. Badly. Their leading strategy over the last few years has been to weaponise stupidity and ignorance, and with great success.

    It must be very confusing for them to find that no matter how stupid the story, no matter how elegantly they package it to feed into the ignorance of readers, nobody is falling for it any more. Rayner is a Hypocrite! Why aren't people flocking to vote Conservative?

    Sadly for the landed money who own right wing clickbait media outlets, their reach is now insignificant. I expect we will see an ever-increasing number of embarrassing (for them) "stories" put out in increasingly shrill tones of desperation, as the threat to their owner's bank balance gets bigger and bigger as that ELE election defeat gets closer and closer.
    I think that saying council house sales are bad policy but people are entitled to do what they can for their families under current rules will be seen as normal by most people - like Healey saying he wanted short waiting lists for everyone, but when they were long he'd pay for his wife to go private if it prevented her being in pain.
    I think similarly about private schools. I don’t think they should be necessary because the state system should provide a universally excellent service. But, if I lived in an area where the state schools were terrible, I’d consider sending my son to one.
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,154
    edited February 25
    A good podcast on Trump's legal/financial woes:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMNF_OseTDM

    His E Jean Carol defamation payment of $88m is shortly up on the 30 day appeal time line. If he can't find the money on that, hard to see how he can come up with $450m (award plus interest) on the New York civil fraud case appeal either.
  • Options
    FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,064

    malcolmg said:

    Taz said:

    Scott_xP said:


    @Parody_PM

    Oliver Dowden clarifies the situation: Lee Anderson is not racist, but the words he spoke were, although similar words are not racist when Suella Braverman uses them.
    #TrevorPhillips #BBCLauraK

    The same defence labour used for Azhar Ali

    It’s rotten. Both parties position on this is vile.

    It’s time for this crap,to be called out for what it is and neither party excuse their bigots and, quite frankly if neither of them are bigots (and it is perfectly plausible) the weaponising it for electoral advantage is little short of disgusting.

    It is a battle as when an MP like Robert Buckland rightly calls it out he’s subjected to all,sorts of vile twitter slurs.
    Yep. Meanwhile where we have found ourselves is having to question the boundaries between the right to protest and harassment. I watched the Twix clip of the Labour fundraiser beseiged by pro-Hamas protestors, unwilling to let anyone exist unless they agree with them.

    On Wednesday it is reported that the mob outside Westminster demanded the right to lobby their MPs - and think it anti-democratic not to be allowed into the central lobby as a mob.

    Parliament passed a motion calling fort an immediate end to the fighting. Which it would seem isn't good enough for the mob. Perhaps its time we start arresting the more in your face ones - those screaming hate at people inside a Costa in Woking as an example for "funding literal genocide"
    Time to get the riot act out and if they don't disperse beat the crap out of them. Anyone obstructing the public going about their lawful way should get a good thrashing and jailed. Time we got some real police in this country instead of woke rainbow fan dancers.
    The police have all the powers they need. But the Tories have axed the police budgets so hard that there aren't enough cops, or police stations, or capacity through the courts to do anything. They can't confess to gutting law and order so instead we get virtue signalling and new laws they can't enforce to replace the old laws they can't enforce.

    The reason why Dodds et al cower from the protestors is that they fear social media. Every Single One of these hate mobs has someone videoing it. Shouting their stupid slogans. If they catch a politician walking they ask utterly stupid questions.

    Rayner et al do not respond because they know that if they engage with said hate mobber and respond in kind ("you know that's fucking mental, right?") it will be clipped out of all context.

    The solution? Have a staffer also videoing everything they do. Tony Benn infamously recorded every interview he ever gave so that he had evidence if he was quoted out of context. Politicians need to do the same because we know how clickbait scum people like the person running the official Conservative Party TwiX feed can make mischief.
    Dan Hodges has pointed out that among the credible death threats received by MPs*, some are from the left/Islamists and some are from the far right. The trouble is that most of the harassment we are seeing videos of is not coming from the far right. This stuff is seriously toxic for the left.

    *I fear we sadly need to be talking about this now
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,173

    Good morning

    I have just seen the front page of the Daily Mail and whilst I do not agree with Angela Rayner politically, their attempt to smear her over the sale of her home is a complete non story

    Listening to Andy Burnham suggesting the whip system should be discontinued is an interesting idea

    The fascinating thing about the Heil's story isn't the story, its the rationale behind the story.

    This isn't a scoop, a big expose which will drive the headlines. Its available information which having picked away at it they have decided to package and weaponise.

    Well I say weaponise. "Weaponise" is more accurate. Their side is going to lose the election. Badly. Their leading strategy over the last few years has been to weaponise stupidity and ignorance, and with great success.

    It must be very confusing for them to find that no matter how stupid the story, no matter how elegantly they package it to feed into the ignorance of readers, nobody is falling for it any more. Rayner is a Hypocrite! Why aren't people flocking to vote Conservative?

    Sadly for the landed money who own right wing clickbait media outlets, their reach is now insignificant. I expect we will see an ever-increasing number of embarrassing (for them) "stories" put out in increasingly shrill tones of desperation, as the threat to their owner's bank balance gets bigger and bigger as that ELE election defeat gets closer and closer.
    I think that saying council house sales are bad policy but people are entitled to do what they can for their families under current rules will be seen as normal by most people - like Healey saying he wanted short waiting lists for everyone, but when they were long he'd pay for his wife to go private if it prevented her being in pain.
    However it does show the hypocrisy of politician's, they have more faces than the town clock and few principles. They talk big about what they would do but if they can make a quick buck then they are right in there. The Labour poundshop grifters are just cheaper versions of the Tories.
  • Options
    bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,913

    malcolmg said:

    Taz said:

    Scott_xP said:


    @Parody_PM

    Oliver Dowden clarifies the situation: Lee Anderson is not racist, but the words he spoke were, although similar words are not racist when Suella Braverman uses them.
    #TrevorPhillips #BBCLauraK

    The same defence labour used for Azhar Ali

    It’s rotten. Both parties position on this is vile.

    It’s time for this crap,to be called out for what it is and neither party excuse their bigots and, quite frankly if neither of them are bigots (and it is perfectly plausible) the weaponising it for electoral advantage is little short of disgusting.

    It is a battle as when an MP like Robert Buckland rightly calls it out he’s subjected to all,sorts of vile twitter slurs.
    Yep. Meanwhile where we have found ourselves is having to question the boundaries between the right to protest and harassment. I watched the Twix clip of the Labour fundraiser beseiged by pro-Hamas protestors, unwilling to let anyone exist unless they agree with them.

    On Wednesday it is reported that the mob outside Westminster demanded the right to lobby their MPs - and think it anti-democratic not to be allowed into the central lobby as a mob.

    Parliament passed a motion calling fort an immediate end to the fighting. Which it would seem isn't good enough for the mob. Perhaps its time we start arresting the more in your face ones - those screaming hate at people inside a Costa in Woking as an example for "funding literal genocide"
    Time to get the riot act out and if they don't disperse beat the crap out of them. Anyone obstructing the public going about their lawful way should get a good thrashing and jailed. Time we got some real police in this country instead of woke rainbow fan dancers.
    The police have all the powers they need. But the Tories have axed the police budgets so hard that there aren't enough cops, or police stations, or capacity through the courts to do anything. They can't confess to gutting law and order so instead we get virtue signalling and new laws they can't enforce to replace the old laws they can't enforce.

    The reason why Dodds et al cower from the protestors is that they fear social media. Every Single One of these hate mobs has someone videoing it. Shouting their stupid slogans. If they catch a politician walking they ask utterly stupid questions.

    Rayner et al do not respond because they know that if they engage with said hate mobber and respond in kind ("you know that's fucking mental, right?") it will be clipped out of all context.

    The solution? Have a staffer also videoing everything they do. Tony Benn infamously recorded every interview he ever gave so that he had evidence if he was quoted out of context. Politicians need to do the same because we know how clickbait scum people like the person running the official Conservative Party TwiX feed can make mischief.
    Make all MPs wear bodycams?
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,154
    Biden raised $42m in January; now has $130m cash on hand.

    Trump? Well, compared to the 2020 cycle, he is down from c750,000 individual donors in 2020 to 535,000 now.

    Seems some folk aren't impressed that their donations are going straight into meeting Trump's legal fees.
  • Options
    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 40,054

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    Definitions, definitions. 'Employment' has been redefined and stretched, ditto 'unemployed' shrunk, in several ways. They will vary from constituency to constituency.
  • Options

    Good morning

    I have just seen the front page of the Daily Mail and whilst I do not agree with Angela Rayner politically, their attempt to smear her over the sale of her home is a complete non story

    Listening to Andy Burnham suggesting the whip system should be discontinued is an interesting idea

    The fascinating thing about the Heil's story isn't the story, its the rationale behind the story.

    This isn't a scoop, a big expose which will drive the headlines. Its available information which having picked away at it they have decided to package and weaponise.

    Well I say weaponise. "Weaponise" is more accurate. Their side is going to lose the election. Badly. Their leading strategy over the last few years has been to weaponise stupidity and ignorance, and with great success.

    It must be very confusing for them to find that no matter how stupid the story, no matter how elegantly they package it to feed into the ignorance of readers, nobody is falling for it any more. Rayner is a Hypocrite! Why aren't people flocking to vote Conservative?

    Sadly for the landed money who own right wing clickbait media outlets, their reach is now insignificant. I expect we will see an ever-increasing number of embarrassing (for them) "stories" put out in increasingly shrill tones of desperation, as the threat to their owner's bank balance gets bigger and bigger as that ELE election defeat gets closer and closer.
    I think that saying council house sales are bad policy but people are entitled to do what they can for their families under current rules will be seen as normal by most people - like Healey saying he wanted short waiting lists for everyone, but when they were long he'd pay for his wife to go private if it prevented her being in pain.
    If there isn't demand for private healthcare it would suggest that far too much money is being spent on the NHS.

    Given near unlimited demand for health services, low NHS productivity growth and the law of diminishing returns for the NHS to be big enough and good enough to end the demand for private healthcare would require it to be funded far too much at the expense of other government services in particular and the rest of the economy generally.
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    AverageNinjaAverageNinja Posts: 1,169
    So the Islamophobic Lee has been suspended. Good.

    The Tories are in an utter hole. Labour had racism problems so the Tories decided to create some of their own.

    They really have completely run out of strategy.
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    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 40,054
    edited February 25
    malcolmg said:

    malcolmg said:

    Carnyx said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    eek said:



    If the economy is bad under Labour - I don't see the Tories getting a chance - it really would be Farage or similar scooping up the votes.

    The tories are going to be electorally irrelevant until they deracinate the structural islamophobia that infests their party and recant on their brexit Nibelungentreue.
    Today I learned what Nibelungentreue means.
    Kadavergehorsam is also a good one.
    must be flogging a dead horse before I look it up
    Got the dead bit at least
    Getting there!

    It means corpselike obedience to one's supposed imperial overlords.

  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 40,054

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Jonathan said:

    You know last week I tipped Patel as next Tory leader at 33/1....

    Liz Truss is also reviving her “fizz with Liz” drinks with MPs in the apparent belief that she can be “queen-maker” in the next leadership contest, though after her trip last week to the United States, where she did an event with Steve Bannon, a former aide to Donald Trump, it is clear she believes she has a more natural audience for her tax-cutting libertarianism there.

    Insiders say Truss may back Priti Patel, a third woman from the Tory right. MPs think Truss wants to be Patel’s chancellor or shadow chancellor.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-mps-plotting-replace-rishi-sunak-tqhkxg60s

    If this happens, Sir Keir Starmer must be the luckiest leader in history.

    When are the conservative Conservatives like Cameron going to stand up and challenge this? At present the traditional wing of the party looks like going down on the ship with Sunak?
    They’re not. It’s over for one nation Tories - they had a decade and a half and they’ve delivered failure; they have no clue how to solve the nation’s problems apart from eVeN morE MiGratIoN and they don’t even have the excuse of being actual lefties, despite espousing entirely left wing beliefs

    At least the brexiteers delivered Brexit. Like it or not

    The only future for the Tories is right wing populism as is happening everywhere else in europe
    I fear they will lurch to the far right but history suggests there's not that much enthusiasm for alt-right populism in this country (fortunately).
    What was Brexit if not a massive vote for alt.right populism? Indeed the biggest vote in British political history
    Right wing? Plenty of left-wing Brexiters. It was - nominally - a single issue referendum.
    Corbyn, Paul Mason and Leon fellow travellers? Well I never.
    Well, quite. And the other Corbyn Bro, too.
    Bastani? Haven’t heard much from him lately.
    Nope, the other Corbyn brother - Piers or Jeremy, whomsoever you didn't mention. Or am I misremembering?
    I try not to think of the Piers one too much, but the favourite PB meme that Corbyn J. was responsible for Brexit because he was a secret Brexiteer who didn’t campaign hard enough for Remain is tattooed on my memory. I recall Sturgeon also got some of that action because Remain only got 62% in Scotland.
    Oh, that's twice as many as Leave according to the BBC, no?
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,971
    MJW said:

    HYUFD said:

    You know last week I tipped Patel as next Tory leader at 33/1....

    Liz Truss is also reviving her “fizz with Liz” drinks with MPs in the apparent belief that she can be “queen-maker” in the next leadership contest, though after her trip last week to the United States, where she did an event with Steve Bannon, a former aide to Donald Trump, it is clear she believes she has a more natural audience for her tax-cutting libertarianism there.

    Insiders say Truss may back Priti Patel, a third woman from the Tory right. MPs think Truss wants to be Patel’s chancellor or shadow chancellor.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-mps-plotting-replace-rishi-sunak-tqhkxg60s

    If this happens, Sir Keir Starmer must be the luckiest leader in history.

    Although many also thought Margaret Thatcher was an unelectable hard right-winger too when she replaced Heath as Conservative leader and became Leader of the Opposition in 1975.

    If the economy is bad under a Labour government all bets are off.

    I doubt enough Tory MPs vote for Patel to put her in the final two to get to the membership though
    The difference here though is twofold - firstly we've already done Thatcherism. There simply isn't the space to shift into there was then. Nor does Labour seem likely to repeat its 1980-83 madness.

    Secondly, if the economy is still bad, Labour will entirely justifiably blame 14 years of Tory government and the policies they pursued and ask for more time and a mandate for stronger action to restore the country's fortunes.

    A choice between a Labour that promises to do more in its second term and go further in undoing the mistakes of the past decade seems fairly unlikely to lose against a Tory party that still hasn't come to terms with said mistakes and wants to repeat them in stereo. Running the 2029 election on 'Liz Truss and/or Suella are right'. Well good luck with that. It'd be like Labour running on Corbyn being right now.

    There could be a disaster that's directly attributable to Labour, but absent that, if things are still just a bit rubbish, then the Tories have a huge hole to dig themselves out of, and seemingly no idea how deep that hole is with those of working age, and thus the growing part of the electorate.
    Depressingly for the country, that rings true.
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    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,971

    Biden raised $42m in January; now has $130m cash on hand.

    Trump? Well, compared to the 2020 cycle, he is down from c750,000 individual donors in 2020 to 535,000 now.

    Seems some folk aren't impressed that their donations are going straight into meeting Trump's legal fees.

    Both are underperforming the last time around.
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    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 40,054
    edited February 25
    malcolmg said:

    Good morning

    I have just seen the front page of the Daily Mail and whilst I do not agree with Angela Rayner politically, their attempt to smear her over the sale of her home is a complete non story

    Listening to Andy Burnham suggesting the whip system should be discontinued is an interesting idea

    It does however that Labour are just as big grifters as the Tories, two cheeks of the same erse.
    We don't know how much Ms Rayner put into her house, to be fair, in the way of improvements. Balancing [ewdit] for the effect of inflation, as I noted last thread, took a fair chunk out of the nominal increase, and a new kitchen, bathroom, rewire, new c/h and so on could easily account for the rest. It was a pretty cheap house anyway and still was fairly cheap even in 2014. So those improvements would have a significant effect.
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    TimSTimS Posts: 9,896
    edited February 25

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    It’s a statistical artefact of demographics.

    Unemployment is highest at younger ages and declines to almost zero by the 50s. Inner city constituencies have much younger populations.
  • Options
    Carnyx said:

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    Definitions, definitions. 'Employment' has been redefined and stretched, ditto 'unemployed' shrunk, in several ways. They will vary from constituency to constituency.
    But as long as apples are compared with apples we can see differences.

    Either between places or between times.

    So we have a big increase in unemployment in Birmingham and London compared to March 2020 whereas unemployment has fallen in Glasgow and Newcastle.
  • Options
    TimSTimS Posts: 9,896
    edited February 25
    TimS said:

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    It’s a statistical artefact of demographics.

    Unemployment is highest at younger ages and declines to almost zero by the 50s. Inner city constituencies have much younger populations.
    It’s increasingly the case that most features of our political economy in the developed world can be explained by age.
  • Options
    kjhkjh Posts: 10,702

    Good morning

    I have just seen the front page of the Daily Mail and whilst I do not agree with Angela Rayner politically, their attempt to smear her over the sale of her home is a complete non story

    Listening to Andy Burnham suggesting the whip system should be discontinued is an interesting idea

    The fascinating thing about the Heil's story isn't the story, its the rationale behind the story.

    This isn't a scoop, a big expose which will drive the headlines. Its available information which having picked away at it they have decided to package and weaponise.

    Well I say weaponise. "Weaponise" is more accurate. Their side is going to lose the election. Badly. Their leading strategy over the last few years has been to weaponise stupidity and ignorance, and with great success.

    It must be very confusing for them to find that no matter how stupid the story, no matter how elegantly they package it to feed into the ignorance of readers, nobody is falling for it any more. Rayner is a Hypocrite! Why aren't people flocking to vote Conservative?

    Sadly for the landed money who own right wing clickbait media outlets, their reach is now insignificant. I expect we will see an ever-increasing number of embarrassing (for them) "stories" put out in increasingly shrill tones of desperation, as the threat to their owner's bank balance gets bigger and bigger as that ELE election defeat gets closer and closer.
    I think that saying council house sales are bad policy but people are entitled to do what they can for their families under current rules will be seen as normal by most people - like Healey saying he wanted short waiting lists for everyone, but when they were long he'd pay for his wife to go private if it prevented her being in pain.
    I remember Peter Jay saying a similar thing. We sent my daughter to the local comp which was good, but our son private because he was particularly gifted. It was highly selective and we wanted him challenged.
  • Options
    noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,886
    TimS said:

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    It’s a statistical artefact of demographics.

    Unemployment is highest at younger ages and declines to almost zero by the 50s. Inner city constituencies have much younger populations.
    Please can we blame it on the layabouts hanging out in the trendy avocado bars playing on their iphones?
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    TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 40,358
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Jonathan said:

    You know last week I tipped Patel as next Tory leader at 33/1....

    Liz Truss is also reviving her “fizz with Liz” drinks with MPs in the apparent belief that she can be “queen-maker” in the next leadership contest, though after her trip last week to the United States, where she did an event with Steve Bannon, a former aide to Donald Trump, it is clear she believes she has a more natural audience for her tax-cutting libertarianism there.

    Insiders say Truss may back Priti Patel, a third woman from the Tory right. MPs think Truss wants to be Patel’s chancellor or shadow chancellor.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-mps-plotting-replace-rishi-sunak-tqhkxg60s

    If this happens, Sir Keir Starmer must be the luckiest leader in history.

    When are the conservative Conservatives like Cameron going to stand up and challenge this? At present the traditional wing of the party looks like going down on the ship with Sunak?
    They’re not. It’s over for one nation Tories - they had a decade and a half and they’ve delivered failure; they have no clue how to solve the nation’s problems apart from eVeN morE MiGratIoN and they don’t even have the excuse of being actual lefties, despite espousing entirely left wing beliefs

    At least the brexiteers delivered Brexit. Like it or not

    The only future for the Tories is right wing populism as is happening everywhere else in europe
    I fear they will lurch to the far right but history suggests there's not that much enthusiasm for alt-right populism in this country (fortunately).
    What was Brexit if not a massive vote for alt.right populism? Indeed the biggest vote in British political history
    Right wing? Plenty of left-wing Brexiters. It was - nominally - a single issue referendum.
    Corbyn, Paul Mason and Leon fellow travellers? Well I never.
    Well, quite. And the other Corbyn Bro, too.
    Bastani? Haven’t heard much from him lately.
    Nope, the other Corbyn brother - Piers or Jeremy, whomsoever you didn't mention. Or am I misremembering?
    I try not to think of the Piers one too much, but the favourite PB meme that Corbyn J. was responsible for Brexit because he was a secret Brexiteer who didn’t campaign hard enough for Remain is tattooed on my memory. I recall Sturgeon also got some of that action because Remain only got 62% in Scotland.
    Oh, that's twice as many as Leave according to the BBC, no?
    Ha, just so!
    But channeling HYUFD, if you assign the 33% who didn't vote to the UK Brexit inclined total, Scotland actually voted Leave.
  • Options
    bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,913
    edited February 25
    Gavin Newsom: The Republican Party has decided rapists have more of a right to become a parent than the families desperately trying to have a child through IVF.

    https://x.com/gavinnewsom/status/1761437081652400174
  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 20,183
    malcolmg said:

    Good morning

    I have just seen the front page of the Daily Mail and whilst I do not agree with Angela Rayner politically, their attempt to smear her over the sale of her home is a complete non story

    Listening to Andy Burnham suggesting the whip system should be discontinued is an interesting idea

    The fascinating thing about the Heil's story isn't the story, its the rationale behind the story.

    This isn't a scoop, a big expose which will drive the headlines. Its available information which having picked away at it they have decided to package and weaponise.

    Well I say weaponise. "Weaponise" is more accurate. Their side is going to lose the election. Badly. Their leading strategy over the last few years has been to weaponise stupidity and ignorance, and with great success.

    It must be very confusing for them to find that no matter how stupid the story, no matter how elegantly they package it to feed into the ignorance of readers, nobody is falling for it any more. Rayner is a Hypocrite! Why aren't people flocking to vote Conservative?

    Sadly for the landed money who own right wing clickbait media outlets, their reach is now insignificant. I expect we will see an ever-increasing number of embarrassing (for them) "stories" put out in increasingly shrill tones of desperation, as the threat to their owner's bank balance gets bigger and bigger as that ELE election defeat gets closer and closer.
    I think that saying council house sales are bad policy but people are entitled to do what they can for their families under current rules will be seen as normal by most people - like Healey saying he wanted short waiting lists for everyone, but when they were long he'd pay for his wife to go private if it prevented her being in pain.
    However it does show the hypocrisy of politician's, they have more faces than the town clock and few principles. They talk big about what they would do but if they can make a quick buck then they are right in there. The Labour poundshop grifters are just cheaper versions of the Tories.
    In what way has she been hypocritical?
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 27,057
    kjh said:

    Good morning

    I have just seen the front page of the Daily Mail and whilst I do not agree with Angela Rayner politically, their attempt to smear her over the sale of her home is a complete non story

    Listening to Andy Burnham suggesting the whip system should be discontinued is an interesting idea

    The fascinating thing about the Heil's story isn't the story, its the rationale behind the story.

    This isn't a scoop, a big expose which will drive the headlines. Its available information which having picked away at it they have decided to package and weaponise.

    Well I say weaponise. "Weaponise" is more accurate. Their side is going to lose the election. Badly. Their leading strategy over the last few years has been to weaponise stupidity and ignorance, and with great success.

    It must be very confusing for them to find that no matter how stupid the story, no matter how elegantly they package it to feed into the ignorance of readers, nobody is falling for it any more. Rayner is a Hypocrite! Why aren't people flocking to vote Conservative?

    Sadly for the landed money who own right wing clickbait media outlets, their reach is now insignificant. I expect we will see an ever-increasing number of embarrassing (for them) "stories" put out in increasingly shrill tones of desperation, as the threat to their owner's bank balance gets bigger and bigger as that ELE election defeat gets closer and closer.
    I think that saying council house sales are bad policy but people are entitled to do what they can for their families under current rules will be seen as normal by most people - like Healey saying he wanted short waiting lists for everyone, but when they were long he'd pay for his wife to go private if it prevented her being in pain.
    I remember Peter Jay saying a similar thing. We sent my daughter to the local comp which was good, but our son private because he was particularly gifted. It was highly selective and we wanted him challenged.
    What about people who can't afford to do the same thing?
  • Options
    TazTaz Posts: 11,373

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    All those dole bludgers in Brum. No wonder their council tax is rocketing for those who are productive.
  • Options
    TimS said:

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    It’s a statistical artefact of demographics.

    Unemployment is highest at younger ages and declines to almost zero by the 50s. Inner city constituencies have much younger populations.
    Sure but that doesn't explain the change from pre covid.

    And isn't that theory out of date in an era of full employment ?

    In previous decades it could be hard for the young to find work if they had no experience but when there are so many job opportunities that shouldn't apply anymore.

    Rather obviously they are all areas of high immigration - but not all high immigration areas have high unemployment.

    Which leads to further questions about why some immigrant communities do worse than others or why the same immigrant community might do better in one area than another.
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 27,057
    Was expecting England to be in a winning position when I just checked the score. Instead it looks like they've messed it up, setting India just 192.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2024/02/25/india-vs-england-live-day-3-score-updates-fourth-test/
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,699
    A

    TimS said:

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    It’s a statistical artefact of demographics.

    Unemployment is highest at younger ages and declines to almost zero by the 50s. Inner city constituencies have much younger populations.
    Please can we blame it on the layabouts hanging out in the trendy avocado bars playing on their iphones?
    Mushy peas bars, Shirley? (P. Mandelson)
  • Options
    Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,616
    Apparently, Angela Rayner sold her ex-council house for £127,500 in 2015. That's a grotesque amount of money, indicating a rich, lavish lifestyle. Probably less than the cost of David Cameron's shed, though.
  • Options
    TimSTimS Posts: 9,896

    TimS said:

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    It’s a statistical artefact of demographics.

    Unemployment is highest at younger ages and declines to almost zero by the 50s. Inner city constituencies have much younger populations.
    Sure but that doesn't explain the change from pre covid.

    And isn't that theory out of date in an era of full employment ?

    In previous decades it could be hard for the young to find work if they had no experience but when there are so many job opportunities that shouldn't apply anymore.

    Rather obviously they are all areas of high immigration - but not all high immigration areas have high unemployment.

    Which leads to further questions about why some immigrant communities do worse than others or why the same immigrant community might do better in one area than another.
    There’s still a huge difference in unemployment rates between young and old. We have as close to “full employment” as we’ve ever had but that still means a rate over 3%.

    Here’s unemployment by age: https://www.statista.com/statistics/974421/unemployment-rate-uk-by-age/#:~:text=Approximately 11.6 percent of people,had the highest unemployment rate.

    As for the trend since 2020, could be a range of things including demographic change and internal migration. Could also be influenced by the loss of city centre retail and hospitality following first Covid then the energy crisis.
  • Options
    isamisam Posts: 41,028
    This interview with Ray Winstone in todays Observer is so condescending I wondered whether Kinabalu was Alex Moshakis

    Apparently Winstone ‘developed’ an East London accent in childhood. What a peculiar thing for a journalist to say

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/feb/25/ray-winstone-interview-i-dont-wanna-talk-about-acting

  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,699

    TimS said:

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    It’s a statistical artefact of demographics.

    Unemployment is highest at younger ages and declines to almost zero by the 50s. Inner city constituencies have much younger populations.
    Sure but that doesn't explain the change from pre covid.

    And isn't that theory out of date in an era of full employment ?

    In previous decades it could be hard for the young to find work if they had no experience but when there are so many job opportunities that shouldn't apply anymore.

    Rather obviously they are all areas of high immigration - but not all high immigration areas have high unemployment.

    Which leads to further questions about why some immigrant communities do worse than others or why the same immigrant community might do better in one area than another.
    There was an article about Leicester the other day - apparently the revaluations of what the garment industry there is really like (happened during the COVID crackdowns) has killed a lot of orders from firms who worried about the reputational risk of being tied to sub minimum wage sweatshops.
  • Options
    TimSTimS Posts: 9,896

    Apparently, Angela Rayner sold her ex-council house for £127,500 in 2015. That's a grotesque amount of money, indicating a rich, lavish lifestyle. Probably less than the cost of David Cameron's shed, though.

    Honestly this story feels like one of those where you wonder if it’s really a Labour plant. It’s like Keir’s parents’ donkeys. Further humanises a politician who already seems more human and relatable than almost the entire Tory party.

    I can never tell if Mail stories of this ilk are simply click bait or someone truly believes they’re going to damage Labour.
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    Taz said:

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    All those dole bludgers in Brum. No wonder their council tax is rocketing for those who are productive.
    Even posho Birmingham Edgbaston has nearly 5k claiming unemployment benefits.

    Something certainly seems to have gone wrong in Birmingham.
  • Options
    darkagedarkage Posts: 4,803
    If you look at the Lee Anderson case, no one has asked him to elaborate on his remarks or provide evidence for them. Instead there is outrage and the insistence that he must be cancelled immediately and any delay or hesitation in doing so implicates and condemns those doing the delaying.

    It is quite a good example of why the 'far right' are getting more and more popular - the left don't like to engage with their opponents, they try instead to get them and their ideas removed them from the discourse - so then over time this enormous monster starts building up.

    This can be observed even when the remarks themselves are incredibly stupid and can be easily rebuked. To people who believe this stuff, the reaction from the left just affirms their worldview.
  • Options
    El_CapitanoEl_Capitano Posts: 3,887
    This is very good on the Rochdale by-election and worth factoring in for anyone betting on it.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1b791591-ae03-4fac-9ad6-46c6a83b6ce6?shareToken=d5aec8d35f515585bd1e160ed9a6bcfd

    The by-election in Rochdale is being framed by some remote observers — and one local candidate — as a referendum on Gaza.

    But those living in the Manchester mill town do not see it that way. They want a greater emphasis on more “bread and butter issues”, such as the cost of living, crime and the NHS.

    One voter, who took part in a focus group in Rochdale last week, put it: “There’s no point in you tackling world peace when the area you live in is a shithole.”


    Many had heard Galloway’s name, and some knew he had been on Celebrity Big Brother (he appeared on the television show in 2006). A couple of people in each group had heard about his views on Palestine, but this was about as much as they knew without further prompting.

    The first question they were asked was whether people would be interested in a candidate running on a single-issue Palestine ticket. Across the groups, the clear answer was no.
  • Options
    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    It’s a statistical artefact of demographics.

    Unemployment is highest at younger ages and declines to almost zero by the 50s. Inner city constituencies have much younger populations.
    Sure but that doesn't explain the change from pre covid.

    And isn't that theory out of date in an era of full employment ?

    In previous decades it could be hard for the young to find work if they had no experience but when there are so many job opportunities that shouldn't apply anymore.

    Rather obviously they are all areas of high immigration - but not all high immigration areas have high unemployment.

    Which leads to further questions about why some immigrant communities do worse than others or why the same immigrant community might do better in one area than another.
    There’s still a huge difference in unemployment rates between young and old. We have as close to “full employment” as we’ve ever had but that still means a rate over 3%.

    Here’s unemployment by age: https://www.statista.com/statistics/974421/unemployment-rate-uk-by-age/#:~:text=Approximately 11.6 percent of people,had the highest unemployment rate.

    As for the trend since 2020, could be a range of things including demographic change and internal migration. Could also be influenced by the loss of city centre retail and hospitality following first Covid then the energy crisis.
    Perhaps, there's likely a range of factors.

    But there seems to be a structural problem in much of London of both housing unaffordability and unemployment and which certainly will not be helped by any further population increase. Rather encouraging internal migration from London might be necessary.

    As for Birmingham it must be a contender for becoming a Detroit style 'failed city'.
  • Options
    Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,616
    darkage said:

    If you look at the Lee Anderson case, no one has asked him to elaborate on his remarks or provide evidence for them. Instead there is outrage and the insistence that he must be cancelled immediately and any delay or hesitation in doing so implicates and condemns those doing the delaying.

    It is quite a good example of why the 'far right' are getting more and more popular - the left don't like to engage with their opponents, they try instead to get them and their ideas removed them from the discourse - so then over time this enormous monster starts building up.

    This can be observed even when the remarks themselves are incredibly stupid and can be easily rebuked. To people who believe this stuff, the reaction from the left just affirms their worldview.

    Anderson said that Khan has "given our capital city away to his mates", and that Islamists had "got control of Khan, and they've got control of London".

    Isn't it rather up to Anderson himself to provide evidence for these statements? What can Khan (or the left) say, other than "you're talking nonsense, and fairly offensive nonsense at that"?
  • Options
    Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,616

    TimS said:

    Apparently, Angela Rayner sold her ex-council house for £127,500 in 2015. That's a grotesque amount of money, indicating a rich, lavish lifestyle. Probably less than the cost of David Cameron's shed, though.

    Honestly this story feels like one of those where you wonder if it’s really a Labour plant. It’s like Keir’s parents’ donkeys. Further humanises a politician who already seems more human and relatable than almost the entire Tory party.

    I can never tell if Mail stories of this ilk are simply click bait or someone truly believes they’re going to damage Labour.
    Next weeks Mail Starmer drama, Keir in disgraceful tax dodge scandal by putting £10k into an ISA.
    In his late mother's donkey's name.
  • Options
    darkage said:

    If you look at the Lee Anderson case, no one has asked him to elaborate on his remarks or provide evidence for them. Instead there is outrage and the insistence that he must be cancelled immediately and any delay or hesitation in doing so implicates and condemns those doing the delaying.

    It is quite a good example of why the 'far right' are getting more and more popular - the left don't like to engage with their opponents, they try instead to get them and their ideas removed them from the discourse - so then over time this enormous monster starts building up.

    This can be observed even when the remarks themselves are incredibly stupid and can be easily rebuked. To people who believe this stuff, the reaction from the left just affirms their worldview.

    Who is cancelling him? He has a show on GBeebies. The Tories have said that he can't remain a Tory MP as he said awful things with the crime of not being Braverman, that isn't the same as him being cancelled.

    An absurd argument to make. I remember some moron on the anti-Iraq war march back in the day shouting "this is a fascist police state" - yeah mate, they let people protest march all the time in fascist police states. Same moronic argument here. "I have been cancelled, I can't say what I and millions of people think" says the presenter of "Lee Anderson's Real World" live every Friday from 7pm.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 40,054

    Carnyx said:

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    Definitions, definitions. 'Employment' has been redefined and stretched, ditto 'unemployed' shrunk, in several ways. They will vary from constituency to constituency.
    But as long as apples are compared with apples we can see differences.

    Either between places or between times.

    So we have a big increase in unemployment in Birmingham and London compared to March 2020 whereas unemployment has fallen in Glasgow and Newcastle.
    Mm. Interesting discussion!
  • Options
    kjhkjh Posts: 10,702
    edited February 25
    Andy_JS said:

    kjh said:

    Good morning

    I have just seen the front page of the Daily Mail and whilst I do not agree with Angela Rayner politically, their attempt to smear her over the sale of her home is a complete non story

    Listening to Andy Burnham suggesting the whip system should be discontinued is an interesting idea

    The fascinating thing about the Heil's story isn't the story, its the rationale behind the story.

    This isn't a scoop, a big expose which will drive the headlines. Its available information which having picked away at it they have decided to package and weaponise.

    Well I say weaponise. "Weaponise" is more accurate. Their side is going to lose the election. Badly. Their leading strategy over the last few years has been to weaponise stupidity and ignorance, and with great success.

    It must be very confusing for them to find that no matter how stupid the story, no matter how elegantly they package it to feed into the ignorance of readers, nobody is falling for it any more. Rayner is a Hypocrite! Why aren't people flocking to vote Conservative?

    Sadly for the landed money who own right wing clickbait media outlets, their reach is now insignificant. I expect we will see an ever-increasing number of embarrassing (for them) "stories" put out in increasingly shrill tones of desperation, as the threat to their owner's bank balance gets bigger and bigger as that ELE election defeat gets closer and closer.
    I think that saying council house sales are bad policy but people are entitled to do what they can for their families under current rules will be seen as normal by most people - like Healey saying he wanted short waiting lists for everyone, but when they were long he'd pay for his wife to go private if it prevented her being in pain.
    I remember Peter Jay saying a similar thing. We sent my daughter to the local comp which was good, but our son private because he was particularly gifted. It was highly selective and we wanted him challenged.
    What about people who can't afford to do the same thing?
    So are saying that because someone else can't afford something you would depieve your own wife, husband, child of something and say leave them in pain or deprive them of a better chance on principle. I believe in state education and health but as others have said here it takes some principles to punish you family for your principles.
  • Options
    bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,913
    darkage said:

    If you look at the Lee Anderson case, no one has asked him to elaborate on his remarks or provide evidence for them. Instead there is outrage and the insistence that he must be cancelled immediately and any delay or hesitation in doing so implicates and condemns those doing the delaying.

    It is quite a good example of why the 'far right' are getting more and more popular - the left don't like to engage with their opponents, they try instead to get them and their ideas removed them from the discourse - so then over time this enormous monster starts building up.

    This can be observed even when the remarks themselves are incredibly stupid and can be easily rebuked. To people who believe this stuff, the reaction from the left just affirms their worldview.

    Nothing, no-one is stopping Anderson going out there and making his case. I’m sure every broadcaster in the country would love an exclusive interview with Anderson, but he’s gone into hiding.

    When Labour’s Rochdale candidate said some inappropriate things, the Conservatives were quick to pounce, insist he be cancelled “and any delay or hesitation in doing so implicates and condemns those doing the delaying.” This isn’t some right/left thing.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,677

    darkage said:

    If you look at the Lee Anderson case, no one has asked him to elaborate on his remarks or provide evidence for them. Instead there is outrage and the insistence that he must be cancelled immediately and any delay or hesitation in doing so implicates and condemns those doing the delaying.

    It is quite a good example of why the 'far right' are getting more and more popular - the left don't like to engage with their opponents, they try instead to get them and their ideas removed them from the discourse - so then over time this enormous monster starts building up.

    This can be observed even when the remarks themselves are incredibly stupid and can be easily rebuked. To people who believe this stuff, the reaction from the left just affirms their worldview.

    Leon had a bash at providing some evidence that the Islamists control Khan and London yesterday, it was pitiful stuff but he tried, bless. No-one bothering to pretend the Islamists control Starmer because it is patent nonsense.
    Yeah, no, that didn’t happen, did it?

    I never excused Anderson’s fatuous, clumsy remarks, which were as ill-advised as they were idiotic

    What I did do was adduce ample, undisputed evidence that Khan has extensive associations, over many years, with decidedly questionable, Islamist types, from mad clerics to actual terrorists. And these associations are of many varieties, from choosing to defend them in court to pleading their case in parliament to writing forewords for books to being legal hombre at the Muslim Council of Britain (a body now virtually proscribed by HMG)

    I pointed out that if a Tory London mayor had all these links with far right neo Nazis, the left would certainly not ignore it. And again I am correct

    I was exposing hypocrisy more than I was exposing Khan. Because, the fact is, the London voters were shown all this evidence of Khan’s dubious friends in 2016, yet they nonetheless elected him mayor and did so again in 2020. That’s democracy, and I accept it. He will win again in 2024, again I will accept it
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,677
    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    Unemployment by constituency:

    https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8748/CBP-8748.pdf

    Birmingham Ladywood 11.7%
    Birmingham Hodge Hill 11.1%
    Birmingham Perry Barr 11.1%
    Birmingham Erdington 10.1%
    Bradford West 9.4%
    Birmingham Hall Green 9.3%
    Brent Central 9.1%
    Birmingham Yardley 9.0%
    Bradford East 9.0%
    Tottenham 8.4%
    Manchester Gorton 8.1%
    Blackley & Broughton 7.9%
    Edmonton 7.7%
    Croydon North 7.5%
    Leeds East 7.5%
    Ealing North 7.4%
    Barking 7.3%
    Birmingham Northfield 7.3%
    Liverpool Walton 7.3%
    Walthamstow 7.2%
    Wolverhampton NE 7.2%
    East Ham 7.1%

    Why are so many parts of big cities failing and with those in London being so close to extreme wealth ?

    By contrast:

    Rother Valley 2.8%
    Makerfield 3.0%
    Durham NW 3.1%
    Bolsover 3.2%
    Barnsley East 3.4%
    Hemsworth 3.0%
    Don Valley 3.5%
    Ashfield 3.7%

    Full employment and affordable housing shows that 'levelling up' has been achieved.

    It’s a statistical artefact of demographics.

    Unemployment is highest at younger ages and declines to almost zero by the 50s. Inner city constituencies have much younger populations.
    It’s increasingly the case that most features of our political economy in the developed world can be explained by age.
    And ethnicity
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,971

    darkage said:

    If you look at the Lee Anderson case, no one has asked him to elaborate on his remarks or provide evidence for them. Instead there is outrage and the insistence that he must be cancelled immediately and any delay or hesitation in doing so implicates and condemns those doing the delaying.

    It is quite a good example of why the 'far right' are getting more and more popular - the left don't like to engage with their opponents, they try instead to get them and their ideas removed them from the discourse - so then over time this enormous monster starts building up.

    This can be observed even when the remarks themselves are incredibly stupid and can be easily rebuked. To people who believe this stuff, the reaction from the left just affirms their worldview.

    Nothing, no-one is stopping Anderson going out there and making his case. I’m sure every broadcaster in the country would love an exclusive interview with Anderson, but he’s gone into hiding.

    When Labour’s Rochdale candidate said some inappropriate things, the Conservatives were quick to pounce, insist he be cancelled “and any delay or hesitation in doing so implicates and condemns those doing the delaying.” This isn’t some right/left thing.
    Which is why Casino and I were in agreement on the last thread.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,677
    I have realised there is one singular advantage to being obsessively up-to-speed on advances in AI. It renders virtually all other political, economic, cultural, psychosocial debates utterly trivial and laughable

    We are on a planet with an asteroid hurtling towards us. It is either 3 months or 30 years away. Probably nearer 3 months

    Advice: if you are under 50 stop putting money in a pension. It’s totally pointless. Save it another way, or spend it. If you are under 25 and in further education consider if your intended career will still exist in ten years, chances are it won’t. Adjust that education accordingly

    If you are a couple planning kids or with young kids plot an escape route out of urban life, it could get messy - have a plan B, at least

    Everyone else, eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow AI
  • Options
    AverageNinjaAverageNinja Posts: 1,169
    edited February 25
    The idea Lee Anderson has been "cancelled" is for the birds. This is where dishonest actors like to use this phrase as today's "political correctness gone mad".

    Lee Anderson broadcasted his opinions.

    Lee Anderson was held accountable for broadcasting his opinions.

    He is free to this day to re-state them, he just isn't employed by the Tory Party anymore to represent them.

    It is not about freedom of speech, it is that certain people - mostly right wing people - want freedom from consequences.

    It is interesting to see the same people that said Labour was allowing anti-Semitism to fester, no room for interoperation etc saying that Lee had a point. He didn't, he not only said something completely untrue, he has directly put Sadiq Khan's life in danger from nutjobs who would quite happily see him killed. Just look at the Tweets under any of his posts for a starter. Despite all that he's still allowed to speak, I just don't have to listen and neither does anyone else.

    Racism, Islamophobia is appalling. Doesn't matter where it comes from.
  • Options
    AverageNinjaAverageNinja Posts: 1,169
    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    If you look at the Lee Anderson case, no one has asked him to elaborate on his remarks or provide evidence for them. Instead there is outrage and the insistence that he must be cancelled immediately and any delay or hesitation in doing so implicates and condemns those doing the delaying.

    It is quite a good example of why the 'far right' are getting more and more popular - the left don't like to engage with their opponents, they try instead to get them and their ideas removed them from the discourse - so then over time this enormous monster starts building up.

    This can be observed even when the remarks themselves are incredibly stupid and can be easily rebuked. To people who believe this stuff, the reaction from the left just affirms their worldview.

    Leon had a bash at providing some evidence that the Islamists control Khan and London yesterday, it was pitiful stuff but he tried, bless. No-one bothering to pretend the Islamists control Starmer because it is patent nonsense.
    Yeah, no, that didn’t happen, did it?

    I never excused Anderson’s fatuous, clumsy remarks, which were as ill-advised as they were idiotic

    What I did do was adduce ample, undisputed evidence that Khan has extensive associations, over many years, with decidedly questionable, Islamist types, from mad clerics to actual terrorists. And these associations are of many varieties, from choosing to defend them in court to pleading their case in parliament to writing forewords for books to being legal hombre at the Muslim Council of Britain (a body now virtually proscribed by HMG)

    I pointed out that if a Tory London mayor had all these links with far right neo Nazis, the left would certainly not ignore it. And again I am correct

    I was exposing hypocrisy more than I was exposing Khan. Because, the fact is, the London voters were shown all this evidence of Khan’s dubious friends in 2016, yet they nonetheless elected him mayor and did so again in 2020. That’s democracy, and I accept it. He will win again in 2024, again I will accept it
    I am sure the Labour candidate's remarks of "Jewish elements in the media" were clumsy and could have been better put across right? Give up, you're being a prat.
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    Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,400

    Apparently, Angela Rayner sold her ex-council house for £127,500 in 2015. That's a grotesque amount of money, indicating a rich, lavish lifestyle. Probably less than the cost of David Cameron's shed, though.

    My house in West Wales is a terraced house and it's worth about 150000, that's hardly an obscene amount of money. It's definitely less than Cameron's shed though.
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    kamskikamski Posts: 4,336

    Cicero said:

    Interesting question as to why the polls consistently underestimate the Dems and overestimate the Republicans, because it certainly seems that they do. Is there a bias in the sample or in the polling companies themselves, in other words is the polling taken to fit a pre-existing bias from those who commission the work?

    In any event it really seems that there is some anecdotal evidence that the Republicans are heading for a thrashing in the Congress even though the polls don´t seem to show this (yet?).

    Of course if the House swings so strongly away from the GOP, then that could be very good news for the Democrats down and up the ticket.

    There's a couple of theories.

    1) There's a bit of an enthusiasm gap for the Dems/Bidens from pure lefties who want a more radical agenda which shows up in the polls but these voters when it comes to voting day will take a flawed Dem candidate over the GOP.

    2) Abortion, there's a piece out there when abortion is on the ballot paper it boosts turnout which is bad for the GOP.
    2) But we’ve seen the Dems do better than their polling in elections where abortion hasn’t been on the ballot.
    I assume it's 1) and 2) not 1) or 2).
    Yah.
    But Dems aren't consistently outperforming polls. I don't know why people on a betting site would repeat this myth.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-election-polling-accuracy/
    has Dems overall *underperforming* polls 2021-22 by 0.8% - although you can probably ignore that if you take into account the fact that Dems failed to contest more House seats then Republicans.

    In the last presidential cycle 2019-20 Dems underperformed polls by 4.7% overall, and in the previous presidential cycle by 3.0%.

    Only in the 2017-18 midterm cycle did Dems outperform polls by 0.5%.

    It's true that in recent special elections Dems have often outperformed what you would expect from the polls - for sure a positive sign for the Dems - but it's not enough evidence to say that Dems are likely to outperform polls in November. It seems that in special elections Dems now have a turnout advantage, that might not tell us much about what will happen in November.
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    The owner of a burger joint in Bradford was left needing stitches after Palestinian supporters attacked him outside his takeaway, FtLion has learned.

    Owner of the popular Salah’s on Leeds Road, Salahudin Yusuf, was assaulted by members of a group comprising of 40-50 people, a close friend of the owner has said.

    Mirban, who has known Salahudin since he arrived to the UK from abroad, told FtLion how a group of angry protestors gathered outside the shop to demand he boycott Coca-Cola.

    Draped in Palestinian flags, Mirban revealed how the mob “were saying on loud speaker last night [that] ‘they sell coke from underneath the counter and we’ve warned them multiple times'”.

    Mirban added how members from the rowdy crowd were “threatening them to stop selling certain products, example coke” despite Salah’s having “removed [the product] two months ago”.

    Believing them to be “predominantly a Muslim crowd” whom employees at Salah’s did not recognise, he described how these “cowards… sent some women [from the group] forward [and] who started shouting abuse”.

    It was at this point that the “men came forward and carried out an attack” like “the cowards that they were”.

    He said: “He was defending his business. They’ve approached on to his business and carried out the assault outside the shop,” during which the “owner was hurt and suffered stitches to his lip”.


    https://www.feedthelion.co.uk/cowards-salahs-bradford-palestine/
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    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,486
    Another mess Starmer and co will have to clear up: higher education.


    David Maguire is vice-chancellor at the University of East Anglia:

    "All the vice-chancellors I talk to (and it is quite a few) are nervous and some are forecasting real challenges in avoiding breaches of banking covenants and making payroll."

    "In England, fees for domestic students have been capped at £9,250 since 2017 and are now worth only around £6,000 in 2012-13 prices. This means that funding per student is at its lowest level in more than 25 years."


    "Could a single failure lead to a domino effect?"

    https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-views-of-the-uk-2024-february-tipping-point/

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    AverageNinjaAverageNinja Posts: 1,169
    I do find it astonishing that in a week that the Tories could have said nothing and let Labour's racism scandal speak for itself, they've decided to drown it out with their own actions.

    Very odd.
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    FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,064
    On Anderson - the best thing, as usual, is to listen to what British Jews are saying. Whilst they have been crying out for support over the Islamist threat no-one I can see has deemed our Lee's remarks as helpful.
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    TazTaz Posts: 11,373

    The idea Lee Anderson has been "cancelled" is for the birds. This is where dishonest actors like to use this phrase as today's "political correctness gone mad".

    Lee Anderson broadcasted his opinions.

    Lee Anderson was held accountable for broadcasting his opinions.

    He is free to this day to re-state them, he just isn't employed by the Tory Party anymore to represent them.

    It is not about freedom of speech, it is that certain people - mostly right wing people - want freedom from consequences.

    It is interesting to see the same people that said Labour was allowing anti-Semitism to fester, no room for interoperation etc saying that Lee had a point. He didn't, he not only said something completely untrue, he has directly put Sadiq Khan's life in danger from nutjobs who would quite happily see him killed. Just look at the Tweets under any of his posts for a starter. Despite all that he's still allowed to speak, I just don't have to listen and neither does anyone else.

    Racism, Islamophobia is appalling. Doesn't matter where it comes from.


    Unless it’s from labour.


    Ironic given the same people who said the Azhar Ali racist outburst was merely confected outrage are, like you, up in arms about Anderson and Braverman.
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    Another mess Starmer and co will have to clear up: higher education.


    David Maguire is vice-chancellor at the University of East Anglia:

    "All the vice-chancellors I talk to (and it is quite a few) are nervous and some are forecasting real challenges in avoiding breaches of banking covenants and making payroll."

    "In England, fees for domestic students have been capped at £9,250 since 2017 and are now worth only around £6,000 in 2012-13 prices. This means that funding per student is at its lowest level in more than 25 years."


    "Could a single failure lead to a domino effect?"

    https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-views-of-the-uk-2024-february-tipping-point/

    The whole university model is obsolete in a globalised world of internet and AI.
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    AverageNinjaAverageNinja Posts: 1,169
    edited February 25
    Taz said:

    The idea Lee Anderson has been "cancelled" is for the birds. This is where dishonest actors like to use this phrase as today's "political correctness gone mad".

    Lee Anderson broadcasted his opinions.

    Lee Anderson was held accountable for broadcasting his opinions.

    He is free to this day to re-state them, he just isn't employed by the Tory Party anymore to represent them.

    It is not about freedom of speech, it is that certain people - mostly right wing people - want freedom from consequences.

    It is interesting to see the same people that said Labour was allowing anti-Semitism to fester, no room for interoperation etc saying that Lee had a point. He didn't, he not only said something completely untrue, he has directly put Sadiq Khan's life in danger from nutjobs who would quite happily see him killed. Just look at the Tweets under any of his posts for a starter. Despite all that he's still allowed to speak, I just don't have to listen and neither does anyone else.

    Racism, Islamophobia is appalling. Doesn't matter where it comes from.


    Unless it’s from labour.


    Ironic given the same people who said the Azhar Ali racist outburst was merely confected outrage are, like you, up in arms about Anderson and Braverman.
    It wasn't confected outrage, what Ali said was racist and he deserved to be kicked out of the party for it. I said so from the start.

    I am not sure why you think I'm being partisan on this. The only thing I said was that Starmer dealt with it in 24 hours, personally I didn't think that was a long time - but it doesn't dispute how this man got to the candidate in the first place.
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    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,699

    The owner of a burger joint in Bradford was left needing stitches after Palestinian supporters attacked him outside his takeaway, FtLion has learned.

    Owner of the popular Salah’s on Leeds Road, Salahudin Yusuf, was assaulted by members of a group comprising of 40-50 people, a close friend of the owner has said.

    Mirban, who has known Salahudin since he arrived to the UK from abroad, told FtLion how a group of angry protestors gathered outside the shop to demand he boycott Coca-Cola.

    Draped in Palestinian flags, Mirban revealed how the mob “were saying on loud speaker last night [that] ‘they sell coke from underneath the counter and we’ve warned them multiple times'”.

    Mirban added how members from the rowdy crowd were “threatening them to stop selling certain products, example coke” despite Salah’s having “removed [the product] two months ago”.

    Believing them to be “predominantly a Muslim crowd” whom employees at Salah’s did not recognise, he described how these “cowards… sent some women [from the group] forward [and] who started shouting abuse”.

    It was at this point that the “men came forward and carried out an attack” like “the cowards that they were”.

    He said: “He was defending his business. They’ve approached on to his business and carried out the assault outside the shop,” during which the “owner was hurt and suffered stitches to his lip”.


    https://www.feedthelion.co.uk/cowards-salahs-bradford-palestine/

    We need to crack down on the Unitarian Fundementalists, right away.
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    kjhkjh Posts: 10,702
    kjh said:

    Andy_JS said:

    kjh said:

    Good morning

    I have just seen the front page of the Daily Mail and whilst I do not agree with Angela Rayner politically, their attempt to smear her over the sale of her home is a complete non story

    Listening to Andy Burnham suggesting the whip system should be discontinued is an interesting idea

    The fascinating thing about the Heil's story isn't the story, its the rationale behind the story.

    This isn't a scoop, a big expose which will drive the headlines. Its available information which having picked away at it they have decided to package and weaponise.

    Well I say weaponise. "Weaponise" is more accurate. Their side is going to lose the election. Badly. Their leading strategy over the last few years has been to weaponise stupidity and ignorance, and with great success.

    It must be very confusing for them to find that no matter how stupid the story, no matter how elegantly they package it to feed into the ignorance of readers, nobody is falling for it any more. Rayner is a Hypocrite! Why aren't people flocking to vote Conservative?

    Sadly for the landed money who own right wing clickbait media outlets, their reach is now insignificant. I expect we will see an ever-increasing number of embarrassing (for them) "stories" put out in increasingly shrill tones of desperation, as the threat to their owner's bank balance gets bigger and bigger as that ELE election defeat gets closer and closer.
    I think that saying council house sales are bad policy but people are entitled to do what they can for their families under current rules will be seen as normal by most people - like Healey saying he wanted short waiting lists for everyone, but when they were long he'd pay for his wife to go private if it prevented her being in pain.
    I remember Peter Jay saying a similar thing. We sent my daughter to the local comp which was good, but our son private because he was particularly gifted. It was highly selective and we wanted him challenged.
    What about people who can't afford to do the same thing?
    So are saying that because someone else can't afford something you would depieve your own wife, husband, child of something and say leave them in pain or deprive them of a better chance on principle. I believe in state education and health but as others have said here it takes some principles to punish you family for your principles.
    My word that was rubbish wasn't it. I bet @Leon has nightmares he might write something so bad one day (Don't worry you won't). Comes of me using the phone and being illiterate. However you get the gist. @NickPalmer's post that I was agreeing with was so much better.
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    FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,064

    The owner of a burger joint in Bradford was left needing stitches after Palestinian supporters attacked him outside his takeaway, FtLion has learned.

    Owner of the popular Salah’s on Leeds Road, Salahudin Yusuf, was assaulted by members of a group comprising of 40-50 people, a close friend of the owner has said.

    Mirban, who has known Salahudin since he arrived to the UK from abroad, told FtLion how a group of angry protestors gathered outside the shop to demand he boycott Coca-Cola.

    Draped in Palestinian flags, Mirban revealed how the mob “were saying on loud speaker last night [that] ‘they sell coke from underneath the counter and we’ve warned them multiple times'”.

    Mirban added how members from the rowdy crowd were “threatening them to stop selling certain products, example coke” despite Salah’s having “removed [the product] two months ago”.

    Believing them to be “predominantly a Muslim crowd” whom employees at Salah’s did not recognise, he described how these “cowards… sent some women [from the group] forward [and] who started shouting abuse”.

    It was at this point that the “men came forward and carried out an attack” like “the cowards that they were”.

    He said: “He was defending his business. They’ve approached on to his business and carried out the assault outside the shop,” during which the “owner was hurt and suffered stitches to his lip”.


    https://www.feedthelion.co.uk/cowards-salahs-bradford-palestine/

    One shouldn't forget the black people in the US who were furious with the BLM riots for destroying their businesses.
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    bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,913

    I do find it astonishing that in a week that the Tories could have said nothing and let Labour's racism scandal speak for itself, they've decided to drown it out with their own actions.

    Very odd.

    It’s obvious what’s going on. Nadine Dorries has explained now “the movement” are controlling the Conservative Party and they want Kemi Badenoch to be next leader. However, when Badenoch was caught possibly lying to Parliament, twice, they swung into action to distract us all. They made Lee Anderson say these things. /s
This discussion has been closed.