Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
He’s certainly not aware when he’s cracking cruel transphobic jokes. He’s taken zero action against Braverman for repeatedly being that perfect example of everything Rishi spoke against and requires action on, in his sermonette this evening.
Lee would still have the Conservative whip, if only apologised for pushing the crude conspiracy about Khan?
But tonight Sunak drew the clearest line in the sand. He’s made calling things out and attacking division, spite and hate, personal, with his own name against this campaign, so from today the buck stops with him to act on everyone, without hierarchy or partiality, who steps out of line on this.
That, politically, is how bloody serious what Sunak done this evening is - he’s strapped himself to an “Ed Stone of Promise” to make the stoking and exploiting of division, that admittedly has been going on to an industrial scale, so much better.
Starting with where the buck obviously stops, with his own behaviours, and that of his governing party.
I know Rochdale reasonably well. Strapline: at least we're not Oldham.
The Northwest is full of struggling post-industrial towns, but there are a handful which are doing ok-ish. Stockport. Bury. Warrington. Preston, at a push. I'd struggle to think of any more.
Doesn't it depress you, all the rubbish towns?
The country is broken. I keep pointing this out. Massive structural issues in the economy which go back decades and transcend the Lab/Con duopoly. The towns are rubbish because we had this stupid idea of bulldozing so much of what made them unique to build ugly anonymous concrete things. With the old jobs gone and no investment in anything.
Rochdale should be one of the places that wins. Beautiful Pennines setting combined with proximity to Manchester and good transport links. Industrial heritage, a proud local (Lancastrian) culture. But instead its got a gutted town centre and congested roads that make it hard to get anywhere, with crumbling relics of factories and victorian warehouses.
The Rochdale Canal is gorgeous.
Apart from the bit through Rochdale. (And Newton Heath, but that goes without saying.)
It may not be for long.
Canals are now having their public funding salami sliced year by year by Short-Term Rishi.
I was amazed when I found out that the Canal and River Trust gets £200m a year or so, and views its main stakeholders/beneficiaries as 30,000 boaters not the larger public or towpath users.
And they are barriered off to mobility aids ... everywhere. And often kept to "one fat labrador" width for the sake of a weltanschauung that came off a 1970s chocolate box. In 1910 two fat boat-horses could pass each other on most of these.
(Vanilla quotes broken, my bit starts here…)
I’m going to the pub so not going to dwell on this but… hard disagree on that. CRT spends immense amounts of money on the larger public and would love to spend more. The boaters are forever moaning about it. It has basically rebranded itself as a “waterways and wellbeing charity”.
I could say more - this is kind of my specialist subject and used to be my job - but it’s Friday and there’s a pint of Old Rosie waiting for me.
How do we rescue these towns? I'm not sure you can
They were built for the industrial revolution, now that has gone and is never returning. AI will destroy the few jobs left
Probably the best thing that could happen is that they are all levelled, and returned to grass, and farms and woods. Depopulate the north, it's not worth saving
The problem since 2010 has been compounded. Decades of local Labour corruption and underfunding by (mainly) central Government has been joined by the decline of the rural market town, like Evesham, and Leominster. I can't remember who let them down. Probably the EU...
I was in Leominster last year and it seemed fine. Can't say the same for Hereford, it was in a right old state
Evesham has been weirdly crap for quite a long time
We have fucked the country with mass immigration on a spectacularly thoughtless scale, and from all the wrong places. That's really all there is to it. There is no point in lying to ourselves any more. The election of a sectarian MP campaigning on aggressively Muslim issues simply underlines this
And this is unfuckable. Roll on the AI Apocalypse
Leominster fair enough, but yeah Hereford is on its arse. Bromyard, Upton, Great Malvern (the Link is OK) Ledbury, I'd argue Newent. And not many Muslims in Ledbury or Newent.
I also went to Bromyard and Ledbury and they were fine, Upton I don't even know, I have heard sad things about Malvern which pains me. Newent lol
And yet Shrewsbury thrives, Ross does pretty well, Ludlow is recovering fast, it's a strange mix, in a beautiful corner of the world
Mass immigration is, of course, not Britain's only problem, but it is at the root of SO many of our problems - from the new violence in our politics to the terrible pressure on our welfare state to the horrors of Birtish housing, built and unbuilt
It is a catastrophic failure, and a reckoning is coming, Tho it will happen in mainland Europe first: they are ahead of the curve
Leon, me old China, you are sounding a bit unhinged and borderline unpleasant with all this banging on about immigration and country going to the dogs and whatnot.
X just told me to search for one of Yasmin A-B's Graun articles (apparently entitled "If I'd Known this Country was so White I'd never have come", according to X) and you are coming over a bit Yasmin A-B but from the opposite direction.
We just elected a sectarian MP in a British city in a by election tinged with Islamist violence and riven with anti-Semitism (and "tinged" is being polite)
It's not a cheery moment for the British multiculty model, is it? What do you want me to do, pretend everything is great in our richly diverse nation?
We do have a richly diverse nation. There are some people who are arseholes. What can you do.
George Galloway I don't believe is a recent immigrant from Somalia, now, is he.
He is from Dundee though.
Where he was a local councillor in the 80s. And a nutter.
How do we rescue these towns? I'm not sure you can
They were built for the industrial revolution, now that has gone and is never returning. AI will destroy the few jobs left
Probably the best thing that could happen is that they are all levelled, and returned to grass, and farms and woods. Depopulate the north, it's not worth saving
The problem since 2010 has been compounded. Decades of local Labour corruption and underfunding by (mainly) central Government has been joined by the decline of the rural market town, like Evesham, and Leominster. I can't remember who let them down. Probably the EU...
I was in Leominster last year and it seemed fine. Can't say the same for Hereford, it was in a right old state
Evesham has been weirdly crap for quite a long time
We have fucked the country with mass immigration on a spectacularly thoughtless scale, and from all the wrong places. That's really all there is to it. There is no point in lying to ourselves any more. The election of a sectarian MP campaigning on aggressively Muslim issues simply underlines this
And this is unfuckable. Roll on the AI Apocalypse
Leominster fair enough, but yeah Hereford is on its arse. Bromyard, Upton, Great Malvern (the Link is OK) Ledbury, I'd argue Newent. And not many Muslims in Ledbury or Newent.
I also went to Bromyard and Ledbury and they were fine, Upton I don't even know, I have heard sad things about Malvern which pains me. Newent lol
And yet Shrewsbury thrives, Ross does pretty well, Ludlow is recovering fast, it's a strange mix, in a beautiful corner of the world
Mass immigration is, of course, not Britain's only problem, but it is at the root of SO many of our problems - from the new violence in our politics to the terrible pressure on our welfare state to the horrors of Birtish housing, built and unbuilt
It is a catastrophic failure, and a reckoning is coming, Tho it will happen in mainland Europe first: they are ahead of the curve
Leon, me old China, you are sounding a bit unhinged and borderline unpleasant with all this banging on about immigration and country going to the dogs and whatnot.
X just told me to search for one of Yasmin A-B's Graun articles (apparently entitled "If I'd Known this Country was so White I'd never have come", according to X) and you are coming over a bit Yasmin A-B but from the opposite direction.
We just elected a sectarian MP in a British city in a by election tinged with Islamist violence and riven with anti-Semitism (and "tinged" is being polite)
It's not a cheery moment for the British multiculty model, is it? What do you want me to do, pretend everything is great in our richly diverse nation?
We do have a richly diverse nation. There are some people who are arseholes. What can you do.
George Galloway I don't believe is a recent immigrant from Somalia, now, is he.
He is from Dundee though.
Where he was a local councillor in the 80s. And a nutter.
Once a nutter. Always a nutter.
The key question is to when he adopted wearing that fucking hat?
To be fair, Rishi's speech was very good. I mean it was odd and strange timing, but judging it objectively, it was good speech, IMO.
Might get a few waverers take a second look...
I'm still puzzled - good or bad - why it was Friday at almost 6pm on Downing Street. Wouldn't it have felt more gravitas as a statement in commons with a concrete, legislative proposal? As it is - it feels like "bloke said something".
@BethRigby Some MPs saying speech welcome but PM could/should have done weeks ago. A podium moment outside No 10 highly unusual & ups the ante. Former cab minister: “A good speech with no action. If you go out at 6pm on a Friday with emergency speech, surely you have to actually outline action?”
Former cabinet minister texts: Some of us have been saying this for months [that PM makes this speech] “At the least he should have done this last week, not in response to Galloway. And he had no policies which made it quite weak”
I am finding this big kerfuffle over Galloway and Palestine and Rishi dusting down his big podium a bit tedious really. If it's so bad, shut up about it and stop giving Galloway free publicity you little twerp.
I agree, best ignoref. But it's in Sunak's interest to promote Galloway - and hope it costs Labour some support.
Yes Rishi is a campaign genius but sticking it to Starmer could
Well done Rochdale. You paint a dismal picture but I'm sure it's deserved. My only brush with the town was when I was asked to do an LP sleeve for a long forgotten band called MUD.
Their record company had the bright idea of photographing them in front of a satanic mill as the workers came pouring out in flat caps gesticulating and shouting abuse. Sort of Lowryesque with a vintage Rolls in the foreground.....unfortunately the workers didn't come out on bicycles or on foot and they weren't angry so it was back to London empty handed
Mud - as in Tiger Feet?
The very same. You've got a good memory
Long forgotten. Nope. Still very fondly remembered and Les Gray toured really until he died. Ray Stiles has been Hollies bassist since the eighties. The camp drummer one Co wrote that Kylie Minogue hit from the nineties can’t get you out of my head with, IIRC, Debbie Gibson.
Les Gray and Mud also appeared in a green cross code ad.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
I know Rochdale reasonably well. Strapline: at least we're not Oldham.
The Northwest is full of struggling post-industrial towns, but there are a handful which are doing ok-ish. Stockport. Bury. Warrington. Preston, at a push. I'd struggle to think of any more.
Doesn't it depress you, all the rubbish towns?
The country is broken. I keep pointing this out. Massive structural issues in the economy which go back decades and transcend the Lab/Con duopoly. The towns are rubbish because we had this stupid idea of bulldozing so much of what made them unique to build ugly anonymous concrete things. With the old jobs gone and no investment in anything.
Rochdale should be one of the places that wins. Beautiful Pennines setting combined with proximity to Manchester and good transport links. Industrial heritage, a proud local (Lancastrian) culture. But instead its got a gutted town centre and congested roads that make it hard to get anywhere, with crumbling relics of factories and victorian warehouses.
The Rochdale Canal is gorgeous.
Apart from the bit through Rochdale. (And Newton Heath, but that goes without saying.)
It may not be for long.
Canals are now having their public funding salami sliced year by year by Short-Term Rishi.
I was amazed when I found out that the Canal and River Trust gets £200m a year or so, and views its main stakeholders/beneficiaries as 30,000 boaters not the larger public or towpath users.
And they are barriered off to mobility aids ... everywhere. And often kept to "one fat labrador" width for the sake of a weltanschauung that came off a 1970s chocolate box. In 1910 two fat boat-horses could pass each other on most of these.
Brian Blessed (for it is he) is a big canal proponent. I HEARD HIM on R4 a while back being VERY ENTHUSED about them. God bless the man.
How do we rescue these towns? I'm not sure you can
They were built for the industrial revolution, now that has gone and is never returning. AI will destroy the few jobs left
Probably the best thing that could happen is that they are all levelled, and returned to grass, and farms and woods. Depopulate the north, it's not worth saving
The problem since 2010 has been compounded. Decades of local Labour corruption and underfunding by (mainly) central Government has been joined by the decline of the rural market town, like Evesham, and Leominster. I can't remember who let them down. Probably the EU...
I was in Leominster last year and it seemed fine. Can't say the same for Hereford, it was in a right old state
Evesham has been weirdly crap for quite a long time
We have fucked the country with mass immigration on a spectacularly thoughtless scale, and from all the wrong places. That's really all there is to it. There is no point in lying to ourselves any more. The election of a sectarian MP campaigning on aggressively Muslim issues simply underlines this
And this is unfuckable. Roll on the AI Apocalypse
Leominster fair enough, but yeah Hereford is on its arse. Bromyard, Upton, Great Malvern (the Link is OK) Ledbury, I'd argue Newent. And not many Muslims in Ledbury or Newent.
I also went to Bromyard and Ledbury and they were fine, Upton I don't even know, I have heard sad things about Malvern which pains me. Newent lol
And yet Shrewsbury thrives, Ross does pretty well, Ludlow is recovering fast, it's a strange mix, in a beautiful corner of the world
Mass immigration is, of course, not Britain's only problem, but it is at the root of SO many of our problems - from the new violence in our politics to the terrible pressure on our welfare state to the horrors of Birtish housing, built and unbuilt
It is a catastrophic failure, and a reckoning is coming, Tho it will happen in mainland Europe first: they are ahead of the curve
Leon, me old China, you are sounding a bit unhinged and borderline unpleasant with all this banging on about immigration and country going to the dogs and whatnot.
X just told me to search for one of Yasmin A-B's Graun articles (apparently entitled "If I'd Known this Country was so White I'd never have come", according to X) and you are coming over a bit Yasmin A-B but from the opposite direction.
We just elected a sectarian MP in a British city in a by election tinged with Islamist violence and riven with anti-Semitism (and "tinged" is being polite)
It's not a cheery moment for the British multiculty model, is it? What do you want me to do, pretend everything is great in our richly diverse nation?
We do have a richly diverse nation. There are some people who are arseholes. What can you do.
George Galloway I don't believe is a recent immigrant from Somalia, now, is he.
He is from Dundee though.
Where he was a local councillor in the 80s. And a nutter.
Once a nutter. Always a nutter.
The key question is to when he adopted wearing that fucking hat?
It was when he was beaten up by a Zionist. The hat covers the scars.
Excellent and thoughtful article @RochdalePioneers about a rather bleak subject matter
Sadly for places like Rochdale I cannot see any future apart from more of the same
Nowadays in large urban conurbations the main focus seems to be the nearest big city to the detriment of the towns surrounding it.
The sad reality of places like Rochdale is the likes of labour did nothing for them and neither did the Tories and local politicians just play the blame game. To which we get a vacuum which gets filled.
It’s all very sad.
Nobody with any power to improve the lot of poor people places like this is interested in doing so. The value of Rochdale and other such places, as far as they're concerned, is as somewhere to dump and abandon unwanted asylum seekers and homeless families from London, and that's probably about it.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
I am finding this big kerfuffle over Galloway and Palestine and Rishi dusting down his big podium a bit tedious really. If it's so bad, shut up about it and stop giving Galloway free publicity you little twerp.
I agree, best ignoref. But it's in Sunak's interest to promote Galloway - and hope it costs Labour some support.
Yes Rishi is a campaign genius but sticking it to Starmer could
Well done Rochdale. You paint a dismal picture but I'm sure it's deserved. My only brush with the town was when I was asked to do an LP sleeve for a long forgotten band called MUD.
Their record company had the bright idea of photographing them in front of a satanic mill as the workers came pouring out in flat caps gesticulating and shouting abuse. Sort of Lowryesque with a vintage Rolls in the foreground.....unfortunately the workers didn't come out on bicycles or on foot and they weren't angry so it was back to London empty handed
Mud - as in Tiger Feet?
The very same. You've got a good memory
Long forgotten. Nope. Still very fondly remembered and Les Gray toured really until he died. Ray Stiles has been Hollies bassist since the eighties. The camp drummer one Co wrote that Kylie Minogue hit from the nineties can’t get you out of my head with, IIRC, Debbie Gibson.
Les Gray and Mud also appeared in a green cross code ad.
With Darth Vader as the Green Cross Man?
Dave Prowse once stayed at a local hotel when I wur a boy. I refused to believe he was Darth Vader. And the girl in my class who's parents ran the hotel brought me a signed photo of Prowse and Vader with a quite angry looking bit of handwriting saying
I am finding this big kerfuffle over Galloway and Palestine and Rishi dusting down his big podium a bit tedious really. If it's so bad, shut up about it and stop giving Galloway free publicity you little twerp.
I agree, best ignoref. But it's in Sunak's interest to promote Galloway - and hope it costs Labour some support.
Yes Rishi is a campaign genius but sticking it to Starmer could
Well done Rochdale. You paint a dismal picture but I'm sure it's deserved. My only brush with the town was when I was asked to do an LP sleeve for a long forgotten band called MUD.
Their record company had the bright idea of photographing them in front of a satanic mill as the workers came pouring out in flat caps gesticulating and shouting abuse. Sort of Lowryesque with a vintage Rolls in the foreground.....unfortunately the workers didn't come out on bicycles or on foot and they weren't angry so it was back to London empty handed
Mud - as in Tiger Feet?
The very same. You've got a good memory
Long forgotten. Nope. Still very fondly remembered and Les Gray toured really until he died. Ray Stiles has been Hollies bassist since the eighties. The camp drummer one Co wrote that Kylie Minogue hit from the nineties can’t get you out of my head with, IIRC, Debbie Gibson.
Les Gray and Mud also appeared in a green cross code ad.
With Darth Vader as the Green Cross Man?
Dave Prowse once stayed at a local hotel when I wur a boy. I refused to believe he was Darth Vader. And the girl in my class who's parents ran the hotel brought me a signed photo of Prowse and Vader with a quite angry looking bit of handwriting saying
Excellent and thoughtful article @RochdalePioneers about a rather bleak subject matter
Sadly for places like Rochdale I cannot see any future apart from more of the same
Nowadays in large urban conurbations the main focus seems to be the nearest big city to the detriment of the towns surrounding it.
The sad reality of places like Rochdale is the likes of labour did nothing for them and neither did the Tories and local politicians just play the blame game. To which we get a vacuum which gets filled.
It’s all very sad.
Nobody with any power to improve the lot of poor people places like this is interested in doing so. The value of Rochdale and other such places, as far as they're concerned, is as somewhere to dump and abandon unwanted asylum seekers and homeless families from London, and that's probably about it.
Very much in their interest to keep'em keen though. Red wall, blue wall, small boats, HS2 will-it-won't-it, levelling up, powerhouse, maybe some tax credits. Even a new Industrial Estate. With roads, if you're lucky.
But basically, vote for us or it'll be even worse. And if you die young, that'd be just spiffing.
I am finding this big kerfuffle over Galloway and Palestine and Rishi dusting down his big podium a bit tedious really. If it's so bad, shut up about it and stop giving Galloway free publicity you little twerp.
I agree, best ignoref. But it's in Sunak's interest to promote Galloway - and hope it costs Labour some support.
Yes Rishi is a campaign genius but sticking it to Starmer could
Well done Rochdale. You paint a dismal picture but I'm sure it's deserved. My only brush with the town was when I was asked to do an LP sleeve for a long forgotten band called MUD.
Their record company had the bright idea of photographing them in front of a satanic mill as the workers came pouring out in flat caps gesticulating and shouting abuse. Sort of Lowryesque with a vintage Rolls in the foreground.....unfortunately the workers didn't come out on bicycles or on foot and they weren't angry so it was back to London empty handed
Mud - as in Tiger Feet?
The very same. You've got a good memory
Long forgotten. Nope. Still very fondly remembered and Les Gray toured really until he died. Ray Stiles has been Hollies bassist since the eighties. The camp drummer one Co wrote that Kylie Minogue hit from the nineties can’t get you out of my head with, IIRC, Debbie Gibson.
Les Gray and Mud also appeared in a green cross code ad.
With Darth Vader as the Green Cross Man?
No,that was a later one.
Keegan did one as did Jon Pertwee.
Network released a couple of DVDs of public info films a few years back. Lovely stuff.
@BethRigby Some MPs saying speech welcome but PM could/should have done weeks ago. A podium moment outside No 10 highly unusual & ups the ante. Former cab minister: “A good speech with no action. If you go out at 6pm on a Friday with emergency speech, surely you have to actually outline action?”
Former cabinet minister texts: Some of us have been saying this for months [that PM makes this speech] “At the least he should have done this last week, not in response to Galloway. And he had no policies which made it quite weak”
This speech reminds me of a non-speech given by IDS back in the day.
Well done Rochdale. You paint a dismal picture but I'm sure it's deserved. My only brush with the town was when I was asked to do an LP sleeve for a long forgotten band called MUD.
Their record company had the bright idea of photographing them in front of a satanic mill as the workers came pouring out in flat caps gesticulating and shouting abuse. Sort of Lowryesque with a vintage Rolls in the foreground.....unfortunately the workers didn't come out on bicycles or on foot and they weren't angry so it was back to London empty handed
Mud - as in Tiger Feet?
The very same. You've got a good memory
Long forgotten. Nope. Still very fondly remembered and Les Gray toured really until he died. Ray Stiles has been Hollies bassist since the eighties. The camp drummer one Co wrote that Kylie Minogue hit from the nineties can’t get you out of my head with, IIRC, Debbie Gibson.
Les Gray and Mud also appeared in a green cross code ad.
I've just looked it up and after my failure it looks like they've done it as an animation. It was unphotographable and it doesn't look too bad. It's called 'Better Than Working'. Funny that after all these years the idea suddenly makes sense!
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
Autumn or later could result in a moderate defeat or an even more horrific defeat.
I'm not sure Sunak cares whether the first or last outcome happens, so he'll gamble in hope of the second coming true.
It’s the modelling on boats.
The fact there’s also a covid report in summer, a million more people taking on higher mortgage payments this year, forcast for lack of growth until saved, not by the government, but by Taylor Swift, and now economists predicting energy costs will send inflation going back upwards again, before the end of the year - all this forecasting is meaningless, mere hundreds and thousands on top a trifle.
Europe properly filled the tank on immigrants last year, to record levels, previously when this has happened, 12 months later the Channel has experienced record crossings. The May 2nd trifle is the UK governments modelling shows an explosion of unpreventable boat crossings from July onwards.
If during July this years trend crosses last years comparative line, a year due to the clever Albanian deal, the “let me tell you - we have reduced boat crossings by a third, Mr Speaker” oft repeated line Rishi can fairly campaign on today, will no longer exist. It’s gone. If, whilst still in government waiting for that general election, this years trend crosses the worst ever comparative year line, the Conservative Party itself will no longer exist. Simples.
What happens to the Tory party if the modelling proves true, as it has proved spot on in previous years - they are still in government waiting for that election - worse than that off on their summer holidays, whilst boat crossings eclipse last years and keep on coming?
A picture saves me typing a thousand words - just think of the Raft of the Medusa.
Excellent and thoughtful article @RochdalePioneers about a rather bleak subject matter
Sadly for places like Rochdale I cannot see any future apart from more of the same
Nowadays in large urban conurbations the main focus seems to be the nearest big city to the detriment of the towns surrounding it.
The sad reality of places like Rochdale is the likes of labour did nothing for them and neither did the Tories and local politicians just play the blame game. To which we get a vacuum which gets filled.
It’s all very sad.
Nobody with any power to improve the lot of poor people places like this is interested in doing so. The value of Rochdale and other such places, as far as they're concerned, is as somewhere to dump and abandon unwanted asylum seekers and homeless families from London, and that's probably about it.
But Rochdale COULD have a future. Think about it. It's run down, but it's not necessarily unattractive; indeed, it has some fine buildings (and look what Bradford is doing with its city centre to emphasise its fine buildings). It's surrounded by some glorious countryside, the likes of which successful towns in the south east could only dream. It's got four or five fast trains an hour to the biggest jobs market in the north i.e. Manchester City Centre. It's also got regular trains to Leeds - it could work as one of those 'looks both ways' towns for couples with one working in different cities. It's got a tram and a motorway. And while Galloway's obviously a shit and so was Cyril Smith, there are a lot of fundamentally decent politicians associated with the town. At the very least, there's no reason why it can't be another Bury.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
Autumn or later could result in a moderate defeat or an even more horrific defeat.
I'm not sure Sunak cares whether the first or last outcome happens, so he'll gamble in hope of the second coming true.
It’s the modelling on boats.
The fact there’s also a covid report in summer, a million more people taking on higher mortgage payments this year, forcast for lack of growth until saved, not by the government, but by Taylor Swift, and now economists predicting energy costs will send inflation going back upwards again, before the end of the year - all this forecasting is meaningless, mere hundreds and thousands on top a trifle.
Europe properly filled the tank on immigrants last year, to record levels, previously when this has happened, 12 months later the Channel has experienced record crossings. The May 2nd trifle is the UK governments modelling shows an explosion of unpreventable boat crossings from July onwards.
If during July this years trend crosses last years comparative line, a year due to the clever Albanian deal, the “let me tell you - we have reduced boat crossings by a third, Mr Speaker” oft repeated line Rishi can fairly campaign on today, will no longer exist. It’s gone. If, whilst still in government waiting for that general election, this years trend crosses the worst ever comparative year line, the Conservative Party itself will no longer exist. Simples.
What happens to the Tory party if the modelling proves true, as it has proved spot on in previous years - they are still in government waiting for that election - worse than that off on their summer holidays, whilst boat crossings eclipse last years and keep on coming?
A picture saves me typing a thousand words - just think of the Raft of the Medusa.
A Raft of the Medusa political event.
It’s May 2nd.
Also, are we all not witnessing the tell tale signs of clearing the decks and getting in place for the most risk free April campaign the government can manufacture? Are we not seeing this? From April meetings cancelled, controversial reports published, cost of Rwanda scheme slipped out, government money paying off bankrupt councils with a sitting Tory MP, promises of delights and satisfaction coming later this year, for postmasters, cost of living, interest rates, mortgages, turned the corner on the economy, early budget with tax cuts which can’t be afforded are unsustainable but will happen anyway ARE WE NOT SEEING THE BLOODY OBVIOUS?
Well done Rochdale. You paint a dismal picture but I'm sure it's deserved. My only brush with the town was when I was asked to do an LP sleeve for a long forgotten band called MUD.
Their record company had the bright idea of photographing them in front of a satanic mill as the workers came pouring out in flat caps gesticulating and shouting abuse. Sort of Lowryesque with a vintage Rolls in the foreground.....unfortunately the workers didn't come out on bicycles or on foot and they weren't angry so it was back to London empty handed
Mud - as in Tiger Feet?
The very same. You've got a good memory
Long forgotten. Nope. Still very fondly remembered and Les Gray toured really until he died. Ray Stiles has been Hollies bassist since the eighties. The camp drummer one Co wrote that Kylie Minogue hit from the nineties can’t get you out of my head with, IIRC, Debbie Gibson.
Les Gray and Mud also appeared in a green cross code ad.
I've just looked it up and after my failure it looks like they've done it as an animation. It was unphotographable and it doesn't look too bad. It's called 'Better Than Working'. Funny that after all these years the idea suddenly makes sense!
Just looked it up. It’s not even on Spotify. Didn’t chart. It looks like it was at the start of the decline of Mud’s fame and fortune.
I am finding this big kerfuffle over Galloway and Palestine and Rishi dusting down his big podium a bit tedious really. If it's so bad, shut up about it and stop giving Galloway free publicity you little twerp.
I agree, best ignoref. But it's in Sunak's interest to promote Galloway - and hope it costs Labour some support.
Yes Rishi is a campaign genius but sticking it to Starmer could
Well done Rochdale. You paint a dismal picture but I'm sure it's deserved. My only brush with the town was when I was asked to do an LP sleeve for a long forgotten band called MUD.
Their record company had the bright idea of photographing them in front of a satanic mill as the workers came pouring out in flat caps gesticulating and shouting abuse. Sort of Lowryesque with a vintage Rolls in the foreground.....unfortunately the workers didn't come out on bicycles or on foot and they weren't angry so it was back to London empty handed
Mud - as in Tiger Feet?
The very same. You've got a good memory
Long forgotten. Nope. Still very fondly remembered and Les Gray toured really until he died. Ray Stiles has been Hollies bassist since the eighties. The camp drummer one Co wrote that Kylie Minogue hit from the nineties can’t get you out of my head with, IIRC, Debbie Gibson.
Les Gray and Mud also appeared in a green cross code ad.
With Darth Vader as the Green Cross Man?
No,that was a later one.
Keegan did one as did Jon Pertwee.
Network released a couple of DVDs of public info films a few years back. Lovely stuff.
The way the celebs in those adverts manhandle the children, they'd all be on a register these days. Better to let the kids die. Here's Kevin Keegan, Joe Bugner and Alvin Stardust.
Excellent and thoughtful article @RochdalePioneers about a rather bleak subject matter
Sadly for places like Rochdale I cannot see any future apart from more of the same
Nowadays in large urban conurbations the main focus seems to be the nearest big city to the detriment of the towns surrounding it.
The sad reality of places like Rochdale is the likes of labour did nothing for them and neither did the Tories and local politicians just play the blame game. To which we get a vacuum which gets filled.
It’s all very sad.
Nobody with any power to improve the lot of poor people places like this is interested in doing so. The value of Rochdale and other such places, as far as they're concerned, is as somewhere to dump and abandon unwanted asylum seekers and homeless families from London, and that's probably about it.
But Rochdale COULD have a future. Think about it. It's run down, but it's not necessarily unattractive; indeed, it has some fine buildings (and look what Bradford is doing with its city centre to emphasise its fine buildings). It's surrounded by some glorious countryside, the likes of which successful towns in the south east could only dream. It's got four or five fast trains an hour to the biggest jobs market in the north i.e. Manchester City Centre. It's also got regular trains to Leeds - it could work as one of those 'looks both ways' towns for couples with one working in different cities. It's got a tram and a motorway. And while Galloway's obviously a shit and so was Cyril Smith, there are a lot of fundamentally decent politicians associated with the town. At the very least, there's no reason why it can't be another Bury.
Fine buildings indeed: we were discussing this recently.
Excellent and thoughtful article @RochdalePioneers about a rather bleak subject matter
Sadly for places like Rochdale I cannot see any future apart from more of the same
Nowadays in large urban conurbations the main focus seems to be the nearest big city to the detriment of the towns surrounding it.
The sad reality of places like Rochdale is the likes of labour did nothing for them and neither did the Tories and local politicians just play the blame game. To which we get a vacuum which gets filled.
It’s all very sad.
Nobody with any power to improve the lot of poor people places like this is interested in doing so. The value of Rochdale and other such places, as far as they're concerned, is as somewhere to dump and abandon unwanted asylum seekers and homeless families from London, and that's probably about it.
Very much in their interest to keep'em keen though. Red wall, blue wall, small boats, HS2 will-it-won't-it, levelling up, powerhouse, maybe some tax credits. Even a new Industrial Estate. With roads, if you're lucky.
But basically, vote for us or it'll be even worse. And if you die young, that'd be just spiffing.
Yeah pretty much, but it's all lies of course. It doesn't matter who people vote for, they will get the same policies - which, broadly speaking, are:
1. We don't want to raise taxes on people who can pay more, because they are our own social class (ageing homeowners, business executives and robber landlords) and they have far too much money and/or too many votes to be touched, so...
2. We're going to make sure that we fill the country with floods of people and don't build any houses for them (we pretend to be interested in doing something about these problems but we are liars,) in order to try to suppress wages to suit business and pump up house prices to appeal to the voters we actually care about
3. Without adequate revenue we have no choice but to run everything (except the state pension) down, but we're going to deflect blame from ourselves by pinning it all on the mistakes of the last lot and/or profligate local councils
And thus the Red and Blue Tories, who are functionally identical, will throw the ticking time bomb of systemic socio-economic collapse between them every few years, doing almost nothing to address it and keeping their fingers crossed that they're either in Opposition or already dead of old age by the time it detonates.
How do we rescue these towns? I'm not sure you can
They were built for the industrial revolution, now that has gone and is never returning. AI will destroy the few jobs left
Probably the best thing that could happen is that they are all levelled, and returned to grass, and farms and woods. Depopulate the north, it's not worth saving
The problem since 2010 has been compounded. Decades of local Labour corruption and underfunding by (mainly) central Government has been joined by the decline of the rural market town, like Evesham, and Leominster. I can't remember who let them down. Probably the EU...
I was in Leominster last year and it seemed fine. Can't say the same for Hereford, it was in a right old state
Evesham has been weirdly crap for quite a long time
We have fucked the country with mass immigration on a spectacularly thoughtless scale, and from all the wrong places. That's really all there is to it. There is no point in lying to ourselves any more. The election of a sectarian MP campaigning on aggressively Muslim issues simply underlines this
And this is unfuckable. Roll on the AI Apocalypse
Leominster fair enough, but yeah Hereford is on its arse. Bromyard, Upton, Great Malvern (the Link is OK) Ledbury, I'd argue Newent. And not many Muslims in Ledbury or Newent.
I also went to Bromyard and Ledbury and they were fine, Upton I don't even know, I have heard sad things about Malvern which pains me. Newent lol
And yet Shrewsbury thrives, Ross does pretty well, Ludlow is recovering fast, it's a strange mix, in a beautiful corner of the world
Mass immigration is, of course, not Britain's only problem, but it is at the root of SO many of our problems - from the new violence in our politics to the terrible pressure on our welfare state to the horrors of Birtish housing, built and unbuilt
It is a catastrophic failure, and a reckoning is coming, Tho it will happen in mainland Europe first: they are ahead of the curve
Leon, me old China, you are sounding a bit unhinged and borderline unpleasant with all this banging on about immigration and country going to the dogs and whatnot.
X just told me to search for one of Yasmin A-B's Graun articles (apparently entitled "If I'd Known this Country was so White I'd never have come", according to X) and you are coming over a bit Yasmin A-B but from the opposite direction.
We just elected a sectarian MP in a British city in a by election tinged with Islamist violence and riven with anti-Semitism (and "tinged" is being polite)
It's not a cheery moment for the British multiculty model, is it? What do you want me to do, pretend everything is great in our richly diverse nation?
We do have a richly diverse nation. There are some people who are arseholes. What can you do.
George Galloway I don't believe is a recent immigrant from Somalia, now, is he.
He is from Dundee though.
Where he was a local councillor in the 80s. And a nutter.
Them Scotch Unionist Brexiteers from the ‘Dee can be a rum lot.
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
Autumn or later could result in a moderate defeat or an even more horrific defeat.
I'm not sure Sunak cares whether the first or last outcome happens, so he'll gamble in hope of the second coming true.
It’s the modelling on boats.
The fact there’s also a covid report in summer, a million more people taking on higher mortgage payments this year, forcast for lack of growth until saved, not by the government, but by Taylor Swift, and now economists predicting energy costs will send inflation going back upwards again, before the end of the year - all this forecasting is meaningless, mere hundreds and thousands on top a trifle.
Europe properly filled the tank on immigrants last year, to record levels, previously when this has happened, 12 months later the Channel has experienced record crossings. The May 2nd trifle is the UK governments modelling shows an explosion of unpreventable boat crossings from July onwards.
If during July this years trend crosses last years comparative line, a year due to the clever Albanian deal, the “let me tell you - we have reduced boat crossings by a third, Mr Speaker” oft repeated line Rishi can fairly campaign on today, will no longer exist. It’s gone. If, whilst still in government waiting for that general election, this years trend crosses the worst ever comparative year line, the Conservative Party itself will no longer exist. Simples.
What happens to the Tory party if the modelling proves true, as it has proved spot on in previous years - they are still in government waiting for that election - worse than that off on their summer holidays, whilst boat crossings eclipse last years and keep on coming?
A picture saves me typing a thousand words - just think of the Raft of the Medusa.
A Raft of the Medusa political event.
It’s May 2nd.
Also, if he leaves it longer than May, there'll be no one left to campaign for the Tories. They'll lose another massive chunk of councillors. Do it in May, Rishi. You'll lose horribly, but less horribly than if you leave it.
I am finding this big kerfuffle over Galloway and Palestine and Rishi dusting down his big podium a bit tedious really. If it's so bad, shut up about it and stop giving Galloway free publicity you little twerp.
I agree, best ignoref. But it's in Sunak's interest to promote Galloway - and hope it costs Labour some support.
Yes Rishi is a campaign genius but sticking it to Starmer could
Well done Rochdale. You paint a dismal picture but I'm sure it's deserved. My only brush with the town was when I was asked to do an LP sleeve for a long forgotten band called MUD.
Their record company had the bright idea of photographing them in front of a satanic mill as the workers came pouring out in flat caps gesticulating and shouting abuse. Sort of Lowryesque with a vintage Rolls in the foreground.....unfortunately the workers didn't come out on bicycles or on foot and they weren't angry so it was back to London empty handed
Mud - as in Tiger Feet?
The very same. You've got a good memory
Long forgotten. Nope. Still very fondly remembered and Les Gray toured really until he died. Ray Stiles has been Hollies bassist since the eighties. The camp drummer one Co wrote that Kylie Minogue hit from the nineties can’t get you out of my head with, IIRC, Debbie Gibson.
Les Gray and Mud also appeared in a green cross code ad.
With Darth Vader as the Green Cross Man?
Dave Prowse once stayed at a local hotel when I wur a boy. I refused to believe he was Darth Vader. And the girl in my class who's parents ran the hotel brought me a signed photo of Prowse and Vader with a quite angry looking bit of handwriting saying
"Dave Prowser ***IS*** Darth Vader".
Darth Farmer, more like.
James Earl Jones is The VOICE of Darth Vader!
Though it was Rick Moranis inside the Darth Vader getup? OR was that a different movie??
How do we rescue these towns? I'm not sure you can
They were built for the industrial revolution, now that has gone and is never returning. AI will destroy the few jobs left
Probably the best thing that could happen is that they are all levelled, and returned to grass, and farms and woods. Depopulate the north, it's not worth saving
The problem since 2010 has been compounded. Decades of local Labour corruption and underfunding by (mainly) central Government has been joined by the decline of the rural market town, like Evesham, and Leominster. I can't remember who let them down. Probably the EU...
I was in Leominster last year and it seemed fine. Can't say the same for Hereford, it was in a right old state
Evesham has been weirdly crap for quite a long time
We have fucked the country with mass immigration on a spectacularly thoughtless scale, and from all the wrong places. That's really all there is to it. There is no point in lying to ourselves any more. The election of a sectarian MP campaigning on aggressively Muslim issues simply underlines this
And this is unfuckable. Roll on the AI Apocalypse
Leominster fair enough, but yeah Hereford is on its arse. Bromyard, Upton, Great Malvern (the Link is OK) Ledbury, I'd argue Newent. And not many Muslims in Ledbury or Newent.
I also went to Bromyard and Ledbury and they were fine, Upton I don't even know, I have heard sad things about Malvern which pains me. Newent lol
And yet Shrewsbury thrives, Ross does pretty well, Ludlow is recovering fast, it's a strange mix, in a beautiful corner of the world
Mass immigration is, of course, not Britain's only problem, but it is at the root of SO many of our problems - from the new violence in our politics to the terrible pressure on our welfare state to the horrors of Birtish housing, built and unbuilt
It is a catastrophic failure, and a reckoning is coming, Tho it will happen in mainland Europe first: they are ahead of the curve
Leon, me old China, you are sounding a bit unhinged and borderline unpleasant with all this banging on about immigration and country going to the dogs and whatnot.
X just told me to search for one of Yasmin A-B's Graun articles (apparently entitled "If I'd Known this Country was so White I'd never have come", according to X) and you are coming over a bit Yasmin A-B but from the opposite direction.
We just elected a sectarian MP in a British city in a by election tinged with Islamist violence and riven with anti-Semitism (and "tinged" is being polite)
It's not a cheery moment for the British multiculty model, is it? What do you want me to do, pretend everything is great in our richly diverse nation?
We do have a richly diverse nation. There are some people who are arseholes. What can you do.
George Galloway I don't believe is a recent immigrant from Somalia, now, is he.
He is from Dundee though.
Where he was a local councillor in the 80s. And a nutter.
Once a nutter. Always a nutter.
The key question is to when he adopted wearing that fucking hat?
Excellent and thoughtful article @RochdalePioneers about a rather bleak subject matter
Sadly for places like Rochdale I cannot see any future apart from more of the same
Nowadays in large urban conurbations the main focus seems to be the nearest big city to the detriment of the towns surrounding it.
The sad reality of places like Rochdale is the likes of labour did nothing for them and neither did the Tories and local politicians just play the blame game. To which we get a vacuum which gets filled.
It’s all very sad.
Nobody with any power to improve the lot of poor people places like this is interested in doing so. The value of Rochdale and other such places, as far as they're concerned, is as somewhere to dump and abandon unwanted asylum seekers and homeless families from London, and that's probably about it.
But Rochdale COULD have a future. Think about it. It's run down, but it's not necessarily unattractive; indeed, it has some fine buildings (and look what Bradford is doing with its city centre to emphasise its fine buildings). It's surrounded by some glorious countryside, the likes of which successful towns in the south east could only dream. It's got four or five fast trains an hour to the biggest jobs market in the north i.e. Manchester City Centre. It's also got regular trains to Leeds - it could work as one of those 'looks both ways' towns for couples with one working in different cities. It's got a tram and a motorway. And while Galloway's obviously a shit and so was Cyril Smith, there are a lot of fundamentally decent politicians associated with the town. At the very least, there's no reason why it can't be another Bury.
But this would require spending money that could better be staffed on keeping the Triple Lock viable and implementing tax cuts that just so happen to primarily benefit the well off.
Levelling up is total bullshit, it's never happening.
Nothing shouts “Don’t panic! Don’t panic” more than a hastily arranged speech from the prime minister outside No 10 at 5.45pm on a Friday. Still, on the plus side, those who chose to carry on watching Pointless on BBC One won’t have missed a thing. It would have been hard to tell the two apart.
Rishi Sunak is the politician’s anti-politician. If he ever came close to a real politician, he might dissolve on contact. Just as well there are so few of them in his cabinet. You could almost call it a talent – the unerring ability to do the wrong thing. To strike the wrong tone. To misjudge the situation. Every time you think things couldn’t get any worse, Rish! appears to say: “Hold my Coke.”
Excellent and thoughtful article @RochdalePioneers about a rather bleak subject matter
Sadly for places like Rochdale I cannot see any future apart from more of the same
Nowadays in large urban conurbations the main focus seems to be the nearest big city to the detriment of the towns surrounding it.
The sad reality of places like Rochdale is the likes of labour did nothing for them and neither did the Tories and local politicians just play the blame game. To which we get a vacuum which gets filled.
It’s all very sad.
Nobody with any power to improve the lot of poor people places like this is interested in doing so. The value of Rochdale and other such places, as far as they're concerned, is as somewhere to dump and abandon unwanted asylum seekers and homeless families from London, and that's probably about it.
Very much in their interest to keep'em keen though. Red wall, blue wall, small boats, HS2 will-it-won't-it, levelling up, powerhouse, maybe some tax credits. Even a new Industrial Estate. With roads, if you're lucky.
But basically, vote for us or it'll be even worse. And if you die young, that'd be just spiffing.
Yeah pretty much, but it's all lies of course. It doesn't matter who people vote for, they will get the same policies - which, broadly speaking, are:
1. We don't want to raise taxes on people who can pay more, because they are our own social class (ageing homeowners, business executives and robber landlords) and they have far too much money and/or too many votes to be touched, so...
2. We're going to make sure that we fill the country with floods of people and don't build any houses for them (we pretend to be interested in doing something about these problems but we are liars,) in order to try to suppress wages to suit business and pump up house prices to appeal to the voters we actually care about
3. Without adequate revenue we have no choice but to run everything (except the state pension) down, but we're going to deflect blame from ourselves by pinning it all on the mistakes of the last lot and/or profligate local councils
And thus the Red and Blue Tories, who are functionally identical, will throw the ticking time bomb of systemic socio-economic collapse between them every few years, doing almost nothing to address it and keeping their fingers crossed that they're either in Opposition or already dead of old age by the time it detonates.
Been saying the same for a while, new labour and tories, same policies....they led us here more of the same is ridiculous isnt going to get us out of it. Sadly the people proposing more of the same arent being affected so they dont see a problem
How do we rescue these towns? I'm not sure you can
They were built for the industrial revolution, now that has gone and is never returning. AI will destroy the few jobs left
Probably the best thing that could happen is that they are all levelled, and returned to grass, and farms and woods. Depopulate the north, it's not worth saving
The problem since 2010 has been compounded. Decades of local Labour corruption and underfunding by (mainly) central Government has been joined by the decline of the rural market town, like Evesham, and Leominster. I can't remember who let them down. Probably the EU...
I was in Leominster last year and it seemed fine. Can't say the same for Hereford, it was in a right old state
Evesham has been weirdly crap for quite a long time
We have fucked the country with mass immigration on a spectacularly thoughtless scale, and from all the wrong places. That's really all there is to it. There is no point in lying to ourselves any more. The election of a sectarian MP campaigning on aggressively Muslim issues simply underlines this
And this is unfuckable. Roll on the AI Apocalypse
Leominster fair enough, but yeah Hereford is on its arse. Bromyard, Upton, Great Malvern (the Link is OK) Ledbury, I'd argue Newent. And not many Muslims in Ledbury or Newent.
I also went to Bromyard and Ledbury and they were fine, Upton I don't even know, I have heard sad things about Malvern which pains me. Newent lol
And yet Shrewsbury thrives, Ross does pretty well, Ludlow is recovering fast, it's a strange mix, in a beautiful corner of the world
Mass immigration is, of course, not Britain's only problem, but it is at the root of SO many of our problems - from the new violence in our politics to the terrible pressure on our welfare state to the horrors of Birtish housing, built and unbuilt
It is a catastrophic failure, and a reckoning is coming, Tho it will happen in mainland Europe first: they are ahead of the curve
Leon, me old China, you are sounding a bit unhinged and borderline unpleasant with all this banging on about immigration and country going to the dogs and whatnot.
X just told me to search for one of Yasmin A-B's Graun articles (apparently entitled "If I'd Known this Country was so White I'd never have come", according to X) and you are coming over a bit Yasmin A-B but from the opposite direction.
We just elected a sectarian MP in a British city in a by election tinged with Islamist violence and riven with anti-Semitism (and "tinged" is being polite)
It's not a cheery moment for the British multiculty model, is it? What do you want me to do, pretend everything is great in our richly diverse nation?
We do have a richly diverse nation. There are some people who are arseholes. What can you do.
George Galloway I don't believe is a recent immigrant from Somalia, now, is he.
He is from Dundee though.
Where he was a local councillor in the 80s. And a nutter.
Them Scotch Unionist Brexiteers from the ‘Dee can be a rum lot.
You could probably fit most of them into the Unicorn. Though not quite the wardroom.
Ok I completely missed Sunak's big announcement. Key points were...?
I didn't see it either, but I doubt either of us missed anything. The key point will have been bullshit, like most political speeches. Lies, waffle and bullshit.
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
Autumn or later could result in a moderate defeat or an even more horrific defeat.
I'm not sure Sunak cares whether the first or last outcome happens, so he'll gamble in hope of the second coming true.
It’s the modelling on boats.
The fact there’s also a covid report in summer, a million more people taking on higher mortgage payments this year, forcast for lack of growth until saved, not by the government, but by Taylor Swift, and now economists predicting energy costs will send inflation going back upwards again, before the end of the year - all this forecasting is meaningless, mere hundreds and thousands on top a trifle.
Europe properly filled the tank on immigrants last year, to record levels, previously when this has happened, 12 months later the Channel has experienced record crossings. The May 2nd trifle is the UK governments modelling shows an explosion of unpreventable boat crossings from July onwards.
If during July this years trend crosses last years comparative line, a year due to the clever Albanian deal, the “let me tell you - we have reduced boat crossings by a third, Mr Speaker” oft repeated line Rishi can fairly campaign on today, will no longer exist. It’s gone. If, whilst still in government waiting for that general election, this years trend crosses the worst ever comparative year line, the Conservative Party itself will no longer exist. Simples.
What happens to the Tory party if the modelling proves true, as it has proved spot on in previous years - they are still in government waiting for that election - worse than that off on their summer holidays, whilst boat crossings eclipse last years and keep on coming?
A picture saves me typing a thousand words - just think of the Raft of the Medusa.
A Raft of the Medusa political event.
It’s May 2nd.
Also, are we all not witnessing the tell tale signs of clearing the decks and getting in place for the most risk free April campaign the government can manufacture? Are we not seeing this? From April meetings cancelled, controversial reports published, cost of Rwanda scheme slipped out, government money paying off bankrupt councils with a sitting Tory MP, promises of delights and satisfaction coming later this year, for postmasters, cost of living, interest rates, mortgages, turned the corner on the economy, early budget with tax cuts which can’t be afforded are unsustainable but will happen anyway ARE WE NOT SEEING THE BLOODY OBVIOUS?
I think you make some valid points about Sunak's speech and I am beginning to wonder if you may have called this right for a May election
Certainly Galloway is not going to sit quietly on the benches and Starmer is his principal target
Furthermore, like Farage, the media will promote everything he says and does and they are both very much mavericks
This is going to be a very divisive and difficult few weeks and months, and with a tax cutting budget next week, increases in the pensions, benefits and living wage in early April plus £300 drop in energy prices and the additional budget goodies, why not
In the words of the late Dick Tuck, "the people have spoken, the bastards."
Speeches for unity by both wings of a political establishment which is so disassociated with society, its problems and its needs are a feeble and inadequate response to the election of George Galloway. People are seriously pissed, and you surely have to be pissed to vote for Gorgeous.
Our politicians need to engage with peoples disenchantment, not pour disdain on it. We have created a country where significant elements simply do not trust or believe in what the political establishment offers. Galloway's election is both the price and proof of failure and the answer cannot be more of the same.
I wish this was not so. I expressed the misplaced hope that this charlatan was a spent force. I was wrong but so is this response.
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
Autumn or later could result in a moderate defeat or an even more horrific defeat.
I'm not sure Sunak cares whether the first or last outcome happens, so he'll gamble in hope of the second coming true.
It’s the modelling on boats.
The fact there’s also a covid report in summer, a million more people taking on higher mortgage payments this year, forcast for lack of growth until saved, not by the government, but by Taylor Swift, and now economists predicting energy costs will send inflation going back upwards again, before the end of the year - all this forecasting is meaningless, mere hundreds and thousands on top a trifle.
Europe properly filled the tank on immigrants last year, to record levels, previously when this has happened, 12 months later the Channel has experienced record crossings. The May 2nd trifle is the UK governments modelling shows an explosion of unpreventable boat crossings from July onwards.
If during July this years trend crosses last years comparative line, a year due to the clever Albanian deal, the “let me tell you - we have reduced boat crossings by a third, Mr Speaker” oft repeated line Rishi can fairly campaign on today, will no longer exist. It’s gone. If, whilst still in government waiting for that general election, this years trend crosses the worst ever comparative year line, the Conservative Party itself will no longer exist. Simples.
What happens to the Tory party if the modelling proves true, as it has proved spot on in previous years - they are still in government waiting for that election - worse than that off on their summer holidays, whilst boat crossings eclipse last years and keep on coming?
A picture saves me typing a thousand words - just think of the Raft of the Medusa.
A Raft of the Medusa political event.
It’s May 2nd.
Also, are we all not witnessing the tell tale signs of clearing the decks and getting in place for the most risk free April campaign the government can manufacture? Are we not seeing this? From April meetings cancelled, controversial reports published, cost of Rwanda scheme slipped out, government money paying off bankrupt councils with a sitting Tory MP, promises of delights and satisfaction coming later this year, for postmasters, cost of living, interest rates, mortgages, turned the corner on the economy, early budget with tax cuts which can’t be afforded are unsustainable but will happen anyway ARE WE NOT SEEING THE BLOODY OBVIOUS?
I think you make some valid points about Sunak's speech and I am beginning to wonder if you may have called this right for a May election
Certainly Galloway is not going to sit quietly on the benches and Starmer is his principal target
Furthermore, like Farage, the media will promote everything he says and does and they are both very much mavericks
This is going to be a very divisive and difficult few weeks and months, and with a tax cutting budget next week, increases in the pensions, benefits and living wage in early April plus £300 drop in energy prices and the additional budget goodies, why not
Inflation will have disappeared by May...for the time being.
Excellent and thoughtful article @RochdalePioneers about a rather bleak subject matter
Sadly for places like Rochdale I cannot see any future apart from more of the same
Nowadays in large urban conurbations the main focus seems to be the nearest big city to the detriment of the towns surrounding it.
The sad reality of places like Rochdale is the likes of labour did nothing for them and neither did the Tories and local politicians just play the blame game. To which we get a vacuum which gets filled.
It’s all very sad.
Nobody with any power to improve the lot of poor people places like this is interested in doing so. The value of Rochdale and other such places, as far as they're concerned, is as somewhere to dump and abandon unwanted asylum seekers and homeless families from London, and that's probably about it.
Very much in their interest to keep'em keen though. Red wall, blue wall, small boats, HS2 will-it-won't-it, levelling up, powerhouse, maybe some tax credits. Even a new Industrial Estate. With roads, if you're lucky.
But basically, vote for us or it'll be even worse. And if you die young, that'd be just spiffing.
Yeah pretty much, but it's all lies of course. It doesn't matter who people vote for, they will get the same policies - which, broadly speaking, are:
1. We don't want to raise taxes on people who can pay more, because they are our own social class (ageing homeowners, business executives and robber landlords) and they have far too much money and/or too many votes to be touched, so...
2. We're going to make sure that we fill the country with floods of people and don't build any houses for them (we pretend to be interested in doing something about these problems but we are liars,) in order to try to suppress wages to suit business and pump up house prices to appeal to the voters we actually care about
3. Without adequate revenue we have no choice but to run everything (except the state pension) down, but we're going to deflect blame from ourselves by pinning it all on the mistakes of the last lot and/or profligate local councils
And thus the Red and Blue Tories, who are functionally identical, will throw the ticking time bomb of systemic socio-economic collapse between them every few years, doing almost nothing to address it and keeping their fingers crossed that they're either in Opposition or already dead of old age by the time it detonates.
Been saying the same for a while, new labour and tories, same policies....they led us here more of the same is ridiculous isnt going to get us out of it. Sadly the people proposing more of the same arent being affected so they dont see a problem
A good example of this is wfh...I cant think of anything that improves levelling up more when you can move to a cheaper area, spend your salary there and also reduces housing pressure and congestion. Both labour and tories think everyone should go back to the office though
Excellent and thoughtful article @RochdalePioneers about a rather bleak subject matter
Sadly for places like Rochdale I cannot see any future apart from more of the same
Nowadays in large urban conurbations the main focus seems to be the nearest big city to the detriment of the towns surrounding it.
The sad reality of places like Rochdale is the likes of labour did nothing for them and neither did the Tories and local politicians just play the blame game. To which we get a vacuum which gets filled.
It’s all very sad.
Nobody with any power to improve the lot of poor people places like this is interested in doing so. The value of Rochdale and other such places, as far as they're concerned, is as somewhere to dump and abandon unwanted asylum seekers and homeless families from London, and that's probably about it.
Very much in their interest to keep'em keen though. Red wall, blue wall, small boats, HS2 will-it-won't-it, levelling up, powerhouse, maybe some tax credits. Even a new Industrial Estate. With roads, if you're lucky.
But basically, vote for us or it'll be even worse. And if you die young, that'd be just spiffing.
Yeah pretty much, but it's all lies of course. It doesn't matter who people vote for, they will get the same policies - which, broadly speaking, are:
1. We don't want to raise taxes on people who can pay more, because they are our own social class (ageing homeowners, business executives and robber landlords) and they have far too much money and/or too many votes to be touched, so...
2. We're going to make sure that we fill the country with floods of people and don't build any houses for them (we pretend to be interested in doing something about these problems but we are liars,) in order to try to suppress wages to suit business and pump up house prices to appeal to the voters we actually care about
3. Without adequate revenue we have no choice but to run everything (except the state pension) down, but we're going to deflect blame from ourselves by pinning it all on the mistakes of the last lot and/or profligate local councils
And thus the Red and Blue Tories, who are functionally identical, will throw the ticking time bomb of systemic socio-economic collapse between them every few years, doing almost nothing to address it and keeping their fingers crossed that they're either in Opposition or already dead of old age by the time it detonates.
Been saying the same for a while, new labour and tories, same policies....they led us here more of the same is ridiculous isnt going to get us out of it. Sadly the people proposing more of the same arent being affected so they dont see a problem
Yep. The next Parliament is going to be something approaching a mirror image of the 2010-15 one: this time with Starmer and Reeves reprising Cameron and Osborne, Labour cutting virtually everything (except the state pension) and blaming it on the Tories.
It's not just the Conservative Party that needs flushing down the toilet.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
Mate, you went full Tonto when you accused me of Hindiphobia (sic) for pointing out Sunak was a bit crap.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
As I said, racism.
Indian therefore Modi.
If he wasn't Hindu, they wouldn't say it.
There's a lot to criticise Sunak for. Doing so via his race is just demeaning.
I am finding this big kerfuffle over Galloway and Palestine and Rishi dusting down his big podium a bit tedious really. If it's so bad, shut up about it and stop giving Galloway free publicity you little twerp.
I agree, best ignoref. But it's in Sunak's interest to promote Galloway - and hope it costs Labour some support.
Yes Rishi is a campaign genius but sticking it to Starmer could
Well done Rochdale. You paint a dismal picture but I'm sure it's deserved. My only brush with the town was when I was asked to do an LP sleeve for a long forgotten band called MUD.
Their record company had the bright idea of photographing them in front of a satanic mill as the workers came pouring out in flat caps gesticulating and shouting abuse. Sort of Lowryesque with a vintage Rolls in the foreground.....unfortunately the workers didn't come out on bicycles or on foot and they weren't angry so it was back to London empty handed
Mud - as in Tiger Feet?
The very same. You've got a good memory
Long forgotten. Nope. Still very fondly remembered and Les Gray toured really until he died. Ray Stiles has been Hollies bassist since the eighties. The camp drummer one Co wrote that Kylie Minogue hit from the nineties can’t get you out of my head with, IIRC, Debbie Gibson.
Les Gray and Mud also appeared in a green cross code ad.
With Darth Vader as the Green Cross Man?
Dave Prowse once stayed at a local hotel when I wur a boy. I refused to believe he was Darth Vader. And the girl in my class who's parents ran the hotel brought me a signed photo of Prowse and Vader with a quite angry looking bit of handwriting saying
"Dave Prowser ***IS*** Darth Vader".
Darth Farmer, more like.
James Earl Jones is The VOICE of Darth Vader!
Though it was Rick Moranis inside the Darth Vader getup? OR was that a different movie??
Rick played Dark Helmet in "Spaceballs". Was a parody of "Star Wars".
Excellent and thoughtful article @RochdalePioneers about a rather bleak subject matter
Sadly for places like Rochdale I cannot see any future apart from more of the same
Nowadays in large urban conurbations the main focus seems to be the nearest big city to the detriment of the towns surrounding it.
The sad reality of places like Rochdale is the likes of labour did nothing for them and neither did the Tories and local politicians just play the blame game. To which we get a vacuum which gets filled.
It’s all very sad.
Nobody with any power to improve the lot of poor people places like this is interested in doing so. The value of Rochdale and other such places, as far as they're concerned, is as somewhere to dump and abandon unwanted asylum seekers and homeless families from London, and that's probably about it.
Very much in their interest to keep'em keen though. Red wall, blue wall, small boats, HS2 will-it-won't-it, levelling up, powerhouse, maybe some tax credits. Even a new Industrial Estate. With roads, if you're lucky.
But basically, vote for us or it'll be even worse. And if you die young, that'd be just spiffing.
Yeah pretty much, but it's all lies of course. It doesn't matter who people vote for, they will get the same policies - which, broadly speaking, are:
1. We don't want to raise taxes on people who can pay more, because they are our own social class (ageing homeowners, business executives and robber landlords) and they have far too much money and/or too many votes to be touched, so...
2. We're going to make sure that we fill the country with floods of people and don't build any houses for them (we pretend to be interested in doing something about these problems but we are liars,) in order to try to suppress wages to suit business and pump up house prices to appeal to the voters we actually care about
3. Without adequate revenue we have no choice but to run everything (except the state pension) down, but we're going to deflect blame from ourselves by pinning it all on the mistakes of the last lot and/or profligate local councils
And thus the Red and Blue Tories, who are functionally identical, will throw the ticking time bomb of systemic socio-economic collapse between them every few years, doing almost nothing to address it and keeping their fingers crossed that they're either in Opposition or already dead of old age by the time it detonates.
Been saying the same for a while, new labour and tories, same policies....they led us here more of the same is ridiculous isnt going to get us out of it. Sadly the people proposing more of the same arent being affected so they dont see a problem
A good example of this is wfh...I cant think of anything that improves levelling up more when you can move to a cheaper area, spend your salary there and also reduces housing pressure and congestion. Both labour and tories think everyone should go back to the office though
I missed that. I saw JRM and one or two other Tories pushing for people go back into offices, and it's been a predictable theme from the Mail, Express and Telegraph (for their readers who largely don't work at all) but I hadn't seen Labour pushing an anti-wfh line.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
Modi is probably not as Islamophobic as Netanyahu.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
Mate, you went full Tonto when you accused me of Hindiphobia (sic) for pointing out Sunak was a bit crap.
If you said that Sunak was a bit crap then that wasn't anything-phobic, it was just plain wrong.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
Modi is probably not as Islamophobic as Netanyahu.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
As I said, racism.
Indian therefore Modi.
If he wasn't Hindu, they wouldn't say it.
There's a lot to criticise Sunak for. Doing so via his race is just demeaning.
You're the one bringing race into it. Did Sunak say in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law” or not? I don't know but that's what the Guardian reported:
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
In the words of the late Dick Tuck, "the people have spoken, the bastards."
Speeches for unity by both wings of a political establishment which is so disassociated with society, its problems and its needs are a feeble and inadequate response to the election of George Galloway. People are seriously pissed, and you surely have to be pissed to vote for Gorgeous.
Our politicians need to engage with peoples disenchantment, not pour disdain on it. We have created a country where significant elements simply do not trust or believe in what the political establishment offers. Galloway's election is both the price and proof of failure and the answer cannot be more of the same.
I wish this was not so. I expressed the misplaced hope that this charlatan was a spent force. I was wrong but so is this response.
It's only the electoral system that's keeping either of the main parties afloat. Of course, there could be a repeat of something akin to the SNP eruption in England, but there's no sign of it as yet.
My own view on this matter is that engagement with our political system is a waste of time and energy. The Overton Window has narrowed to a singularity, therefore meaningful change is impossible and democracy has effectively ended. Elections are window dressing to make it look as if regime change is possible but they're really of no more relevance or value than those in Russia - we just have to be content that our oligarchy is less malignant than their monarchy.
If you want to make a difference then do charity work or support a community group. Voting achieves nothing.
Excellent and thoughtful article @RochdalePioneers about a rather bleak subject matter
Sadly for places like Rochdale I cannot see any future apart from more of the same
Nowadays in large urban conurbations the main focus seems to be the nearest big city to the detriment of the towns surrounding it.
The sad reality of places like Rochdale is the likes of labour did nothing for them and neither did the Tories and local politicians just play the blame game. To which we get a vacuum which gets filled.
It’s all very sad.
Nobody with any power to improve the lot of poor people places like this is interested in doing so. The value of Rochdale and other such places, as far as they're concerned, is as somewhere to dump and abandon unwanted asylum seekers and homeless families from London, and that's probably about it.
Very much in their interest to keep'em keen though. Red wall, blue wall, small boats, HS2 will-it-won't-it, levelling up, powerhouse, maybe some tax credits. Even a new Industrial Estate. With roads, if you're lucky.
But basically, vote for us or it'll be even worse. And if you die young, that'd be just spiffing.
Yeah pretty much, but it's all lies of course. It doesn't matter who people vote for, they will get the same policies - which, broadly speaking, are:
1. We don't want to raise taxes on people who can pay more, because they are our own social class (ageing homeowners, business executives and robber landlords) and they have far too much money and/or too many votes to be touched, so...
2. We're going to make sure that we fill the country with floods of people and don't build any houses for them (we pretend to be interested in doing something about these problems but we are liars,) in order to try to suppress wages to suit business and pump up house prices to appeal to the voters we actually care about
3. Without adequate revenue we have no choice but to run everything (except the state pension) down, but we're going to deflect blame from ourselves by pinning it all on the mistakes of the last lot and/or profligate local councils
And thus the Red and Blue Tories, who are functionally identical, will throw the ticking time bomb of systemic socio-economic collapse between them every few years, doing almost nothing to address it and keeping their fingers crossed that they're either in Opposition or already dead of old age by the time it detonates.
Been saying the same for a while, new labour and tories, same policies....they led us here more of the same is ridiculous isnt going to get us out of it. Sadly the people proposing more of the same arent being affected so they dont see a problem
A good example of this is wfh...I cant think of anything that improves levelling up more when you can move to a cheaper area, spend your salary there and also reduces housing pressure and congestion. Both labour and tories think everyone should go back to the office though
I missed that. I saw JRM and one or two other Tories pushing for people go back into offices, and it's been a predictable theme from the Mail, Express and Telegraph (for their readers who largely don't work at all) but I hadn't seen Labour pushing an anti-wfh line.
Do you have any examples?
All councils labour and tory are heavily invested in office space to rent. They wont like the collapse of the market indeed slough council which is labour run has already gone bankrupt because of their investment in commercial property
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
Mate, you went full Tonto when you accused me of Hindiphobia (sic) for pointing out Sunak was a bit crap.
From memory I believe I was questioning your near obsessive dislike of him. I realise you don't tend to do nuance, that's your thing but in the case of Sunak it did seem to be getting a bit much.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
As I said, racism.
Indian therefore Modi.
If he wasn't Hindu, they wouldn't say it.
There's a lot to criticise Sunak for. Doing so via his race is just demeaning.
You're the one bringing race into it. Did Sunak say in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law” or not? I don't know but that's what the Guardian reported:
I would say a range of policies that look to generate hope for our young in particular.
That means much more housing, both social and private. It means the sort of policies that were talked about in levelling up but which were never funded. It means sorting out the ridiculous burden of further educational debt. It means policies that encourage training by the same sort of incentives that we saw for capital spending. It means rebalancing the tax burden away from those who work for a living towards those with capital. It means abolishing the triple lock and accepting that pensioners simply cannot be protected from the pain of the young and working poor. It means prioritising transport and other infrastructure. It means accepting that social care should be paid for out of the estates of the deceased rather than taxing the minimum wage worker. It means recognition that the purpose of government is not to provide a rather cosy lifestyle for the few million that work for it but to provide the actual services that people need.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
Tonto is a different sort of Indian.
Calling Native Americans "Indians" = racism by Columbus!
I would say a range of policies that look to generate hope for our young in particular.
That means much more housing, both social and private. It means the sort of policies that were talked about in levelling up but which were never funded. It means sorting out the ridiculous burden of further educational debt. It means policies that encourage training by the same sort of incentives that we saw for capital spending. It means rebalancing the tax burden away from those who work for a living towards those with capital. It means abolishing the triple lock and accepting that pensioners simply cannot be protected from the pain of the young and working poor. It means prioritising transport and other infrastructure. It means accepting that social care should be paid for out of the estates of the deceased rather than taxing the minimum wage worker. It means recognition that the purpose of government is not to provide a rather cosy lifestyle for the few million that work for it but to provide the actual services that people need.
Have I lost every seat yet?
I don't know about every seat, but you've got my vote.
Well done Rochdale. You paint a dismal picture but I'm sure it's deserved. My only brush with the town was when I was asked to do an LP sleeve for a long forgotten band called MUD.
Their record company had the bright idea of photographing them in front of a satanic mill as the workers came pouring out in flat caps gesticulating and shouting abuse. Sort of Lowryesque with a vintage Rolls in the foreground.....unfortunately the workers didn't come out on bicycles or on foot and they weren't angry so it was back to London empty handed
Mud - as in Tiger Feet?
The very same. You've got a good memory
Long forgotten. Nope. Still very fondly remembered and Les Gray toured really until he died. Ray Stiles has been Hollies bassist since the eighties. The camp drummer one Co wrote that Kylie Minogue hit from the nineties can’t get you out of my head with, IIRC, Debbie Gibson.
Les Gray and Mud also appeared in a green cross code ad.
I've just looked it up and after my failure it looks like they've done it as an animation. It was unphotographable and it doesn't look too bad. It's called 'Better Than Working'. Funny that after all these years the idea suddenly makes sense!
Just looked it up. It’s not even on Spotify. Didn’t chart. It looks like it was at the start of the decline of Mud’s fame and fortune.
That's a shame but they seemed pretty bored. I did quite a lot of shots but they weren't easy subjects. This looks like what they ended up with
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
Mate, you went full Tonto when you accused me of Hindiphobia (sic) for pointing out Sunak was a bit crap.
From memory I believe I was questioning your near obsessive dislike of him. I realise you don't tend to do nuance, that's your thing but in the case of Sunak it did seem to be getting a bit much.
This is a betting site, I was pointing how badly he was doing, how it would reflect in the polls and betting, just like I did with Liz Truss, nobody accused me of misogyny.
As for nuance, my robustness allowed me to make a lot of money on these things.
In my experience, if you can not say what you mean, you can never mean what you say. The details are everything.
In the words of the late Dick Tuck, "the people have spoken, the bastards."
Speeches for unity by both wings of a political establishment which is so disassociated with society, its problems and its needs are a feeble and inadequate response to the election of George Galloway. People are seriously pissed, and you surely have to be pissed to vote for Gorgeous.
Our politicians need to engage with peoples disenchantment, not pour disdain on it. We have created a country where significant elements simply do not trust or believe in what the political establishment offers. Galloway's election is both the price and proof of failure and the answer cannot be more of the same.
I wish this was not so. I expressed the misplaced hope that this charlatan was a spent force. I was wrong but so is this response.
It's only the electoral system that's keeping either of the main parties afloat. Of course, there could be a repeat of something akin to the SNP eruption in England, but there's no sign of it as yet.
My own view on this matter is that engagement with our political system is a waste of time and energy. The Overton Window has narrowed to a singularity, therefore meaningful change is impossible and democracy has effectively ended. Elections are window dressing to make it look as if regime change is possible but they're really of no more relevance or value than those in Russia - we just have to be content that our oligarchy is less malignant than their monarchy.
If you want to make a difference then do charity work or support a community group. Voting achieves nothing.
Came to the same view and havent voted since 2010 as no one worth voting for they are just slightly different shades of the same policy. Might vote this year as apparently omrlp might stand in my constituency
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
Autumn or later could result in a moderate defeat or an even more horrific defeat.
I'm not sure Sunak cares whether the first or last outcome happens, so he'll gamble in hope of the second coming true.
It’s the modelling on boats.
The fact there’s also a covid report in summer, a million more people taking on higher mortgage payments this year, forcast for lack of growth until saved, not by the government, but by Taylor Swift, and now economists predicting energy costs will send inflation going back upwards again, before the end of the year - all this forecasting is meaningless, mere hundreds and thousands on top a trifle.
Europe properly filled the tank on immigrants last year, to record levels, previously when this has happened, 12 months later the Channel has experienced record crossings. The May 2nd trifle is the UK governments modelling shows an explosion of unpreventable boat crossings from July onwards.
If during July this years trend crosses last years comparative line, a year due to the clever Albanian deal, the “let me tell you - we have reduced boat crossings by a third, Mr Speaker” oft repeated line Rishi can fairly campaign on today, will no longer exist. It’s gone. If, whilst still in government waiting for that general election, this years trend crosses the worst ever comparative year line, the Conservative Party itself will no longer exist. Simples.
What happens to the Tory party if the modelling proves true, as it has proved spot on in previous years - they are still in government waiting for that election - worse than that off on their summer holidays, whilst boat crossings eclipse last years and keep on coming?
A picture saves me typing a thousand words - just think of the Raft of the Medusa.
A Raft of the Medusa political event.
It’s May 2nd.
Also, if he leaves it longer than May, there'll be no one left to campaign for the Tories. They'll lose another massive chunk of councillors. Do it in May, Rishi. You'll lose horribly, but less horribly than if you leave it.
Not necessarily, Labour got just 23% in the 2009 locals and lost almost 300 councillors and came third, however Brown waited the full 5 years and got Labour to 29% and a hung parliament in 2010, even if the Tories won most seats still.
Plus in general elections GOTV matters less than in local elections and by elections as most voters turn out to vote anyway, knocked up or not. It only really matters in a handful of ultra marginals won by 1000 votes or less
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
Autumn or later could result in a moderate defeat or an even more horrific defeat.
I'm not sure Sunak cares whether the first or last outcome happens, so he'll gamble in hope of the second coming true.
It’s the modelling on boats.
The fact there’s also a covid report in summer, a million more people taking on higher mortgage payments this year, forcast for lack of growth until saved, not by the government, but by Taylor Swift, and now economists predicting energy costs will send inflation going back upwards again, before the end of the year - all this forecasting is meaningless, mere hundreds and thousands on top a trifle.
Europe properly filled the tank on immigrants last year, to record levels, previously when this has happened, 12 months later the Channel has experienced record crossings. The May 2nd trifle is the UK governments modelling shows an explosion of unpreventable boat crossings from July onwards.
If during July this years trend crosses last years comparative line, a year due to the clever Albanian deal, the “let me tell you - we have reduced boat crossings by a third, Mr Speaker” oft repeated line Rishi can fairly campaign on today, will no longer exist. It’s gone. If, whilst still in government waiting for that general election, this years trend crosses the worst ever comparative year line, the Conservative Party itself will no longer exist. Simples.
What happens to the Tory party if the modelling proves true, as it has proved spot on in previous years - they are still in government waiting for that election - worse than that off on their summer holidays, whilst boat crossings eclipse last years and keep on coming?
A picture saves me typing a thousand words - just think of the Raft of the Medusa.
A Raft of the Medusa political event.
It’s May 2nd.
Also, if he leaves it longer than May, there'll be no one left to campaign for the Tories. They'll lose another massive chunk of councillors. Do it in May, Rishi. You'll lose horribly, but less horribly than if you leave it.
Not necessarily, Labour got just 23% in the 2009 locals and lost almost 300 councillors and came third, however Brown waited the full 5 years and got Labour to 29% and a hung parliament in 2010, even if the Tories won most seats still.
Plus in general elections GOTV matters less than in local elections and by elections as most voters turn out to vote anyway, knocked up or not. It only really matters in a handful of ultra marginals won by 1000 votes or less
So seats like South Holland and the Deepings at the next election then?
In the words of the late Dick Tuck, "the people have spoken, the bastards."
Speeches for unity by both wings of a political establishment which is so disassociated with society, its problems and its needs are a feeble and inadequate response to the election of George Galloway. People are seriously pissed, and you surely have to be pissed to vote for Gorgeous.
Our politicians need to engage with peoples disenchantment, not pour disdain on it. We have created a country where significant elements simply do not trust or believe in what the political establishment offers. Galloway's election is both the price and proof of failure and the answer cannot be more of the same.
I wish this was not so. I expressed the misplaced hope that this charlatan was a spent force. I was wrong but so is this response.
It's only the electoral system that's keeping either of the main parties afloat. Of course, there could be a repeat of something akin to the SNP eruption in England, but there's no sign of it as yet.
My own view on this matter is that engagement with our political system is a waste of time and energy. The Overton Window has narrowed to a singularity, therefore meaningful change is impossible and democracy has effectively ended. Elections are window dressing to make it look as if regime change is possible but they're really of no more relevance or value than those in Russia - we just have to be content that our oligarchy is less malignant than their monarchy.
If you want to make a difference then do charity work or support a community group. Voting achieves nothing.
The SNP eruption shows that the tectonic plates of our political system are not as rigid as they appear. We are running the risk of a breakthrough by the likes of Reform UK or a party obsessed with climate change to the exclusion of all else. They will not all be as easily assimilated as the SNP proved to be.
So switched my phone off at 3.30 to watch Dune Part II.
If I understand correctly Sunak warned and condemned extremists like Suella Braverman, George Galloway, and Lee Anderson.
Am I right?
Also Dune Part II, fucking awesome.
You undersell Dune Part II. Everybody involved with it was absolutely at the top of their game. A quite extraordinary piece of filmmaking. A travelogue to foreign lands, brilliantly imagined and delivered to the screen. Set piece battle to full on war, it just blew me away.
One of the best things I have ever seen in the cinema.
Or maybe I am just easily pleased.
(Trivia: "The Voice" is provided by Marianne Faithful.)
So switched my phone off at 3.30 to watch Dune Part II.
If I understand correctly Sunak warned and condemned extremists like Suella Braverman, George Galloway, and Lee Anderson.
Am I right?
Also Dune Part II, fucking awesome.
You undersell Dune Part II. Everybody involved with it was absolutely at the top of their game. A quite extraordinary piece of filmmaking. A travelogue to foreign lands, brilliantly imagined and delivered to the screen. Set piece battle to full on war, it just blew me away.
One of the best things I have ever seen in the cinema.
Or maybe I am just easily pleased.
(Trivia: "The Voice" is provided by Marianne Faithful.)
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
Tonto is a different sort of Indian.
Calling Native Americans "Indians" = racism by Columbus!
Is it really Columbus's fault that he was so poor at geography?
I would say a range of policies that look to generate hope for our young in particular.
That means much more housing, both social and private. It means the sort of policies that were talked about in levelling up but which were never funded. It means sorting out the ridiculous burden of further educational debt. It means policies that encourage training by the same sort of incentives that we saw for capital spending. It means rebalancing the tax burden away from those who work for a living towards those with capital. It means abolishing the triple lock and accepting that pensioners simply cannot be protected from the pain of the young and working poor. It means prioritising transport and other infrastructure. It means accepting that social care should be paid for out of the estates of the deceased rather than taxing the minimum wage worker. It means recognition that the purpose of government is not to provide a rather cosy lifestyle for the few million that work for it but to provide the actual services that people need.
Have I lost every seat yet?
'It means accepting that social care should be paid for out of the estates of the deceased rather than taxing the minimum wage worker.' May's 2017 lost majority after her similar dementia tax plans put paid to either of the main parties ever touching that for at home care, of course it already applies for residential care anyway.
Further education debt requires a proper market in fees, so economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial should rightly cost the most as those graduates will earn most and creative arts or humanities subjects at lower ranked universities cost least as those graduates will tend to earn least after university.
Hunt has already cut NI and may yet cut income tax.
The minimum wage and benefits have been increased with inflation anyway, abolishing the triple lock would hit the poorest pensioners reliant on the state pension most, those with big private pensions would hardly notice any difference
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
Autumn or later could result in a moderate defeat or an even more horrific defeat.
I'm not sure Sunak cares whether the first or last outcome happens, so he'll gamble in hope of the second coming true.
It’s the modelling on boats.
The fact there’s also a covid report in summer, a million more people taking on higher mortgage payments this year, forcast for lack of growth until saved, not by the government, but by Taylor Swift, and now economists predicting energy costs will send inflation going back upwards again, before the end of the year - all this forecasting is meaningless, mere hundreds and thousands on top a trifle.
Europe properly filled the tank on immigrants last year, to record levels, previously when this has happened, 12 months later the Channel has experienced record crossings. The May 2nd trifle is the UK governments modelling shows an explosion of unpreventable boat crossings from July onwards.
If during July this years trend crosses last years comparative line, a year due to the clever Albanian deal, the “let me tell you - we have reduced boat crossings by a third, Mr Speaker” oft repeated line Rishi can fairly campaign on today, will no longer exist. It’s gone. If, whilst still in government waiting for that general election, this years trend crosses the worst ever comparative year line, the Conservative Party itself will no longer exist. Simples.
What happens to the Tory party if the modelling proves true, as it has proved spot on in previous years - they are still in government waiting for that election - worse than that off on their summer holidays, whilst boat crossings eclipse last years and keep on coming?
A picture saves me typing a thousand words - just think of the Raft of the Medusa.
A Raft of the Medusa political event.
It’s May 2nd.
Also, if he leaves it longer than May, there'll be no one left to campaign for the Tories. They'll lose another massive chunk of councillors. Do it in May, Rishi. You'll lose horribly, but less horribly than if you leave it.
Sunak clearly wants to be PM for some reason, so I still think he'll choose to remain PM for an extra seven months by holding on for an election in December.
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
Autumn or later could result in a moderate defeat or an even more horrific defeat.
I'm not sure Sunak cares whether the first or last outcome happens, so he'll gamble in hope of the second coming true.
It’s the modelling on boats.
The fact there’s also a covid report in summer, a million more people taking on higher mortgage payments this year, forcast for lack of growth until saved, not by the government, but by Taylor Swift, and now economists predicting energy costs will send inflation going back upwards again, before the end of the year - all this forecasting is meaningless, mere hundreds and thousands on top a trifle.
Europe properly filled the tank on immigrants last year, to record levels, previously when this has happened, 12 months later the Channel has experienced record crossings. The May 2nd trifle is the UK governments modelling shows an explosion of unpreventable boat crossings from July onwards.
If during July this years trend crosses last years comparative line, a year due to the clever Albanian deal, the “let me tell you - we have reduced boat crossings by a third, Mr Speaker” oft repeated line Rishi can fairly campaign on today, will no longer exist. It’s gone. If, whilst still in government waiting for that general election, this years trend crosses the worst ever comparative year line, the Conservative Party itself will no longer exist. Simples.
What happens to the Tory party if the modelling proves true, as it has proved spot on in previous years - they are still in government waiting for that election - worse than that off on their summer holidays, whilst boat crossings eclipse last years and keep on coming?
A picture saves me typing a thousand words - just think of the Raft of the Medusa.
A Raft of the Medusa political event.
It’s May 2nd.
Also, if he leaves it longer than May, there'll be no one left to campaign for the Tories. They'll lose another massive chunk of councillors. Do it in May, Rishi. You'll lose horribly, but less horribly than if you leave it.
Sunak clearly wants to be PM for some reason, so I still think he'll choose to remain PM for an extra seven months by holding on for an election in December.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
As I said, racism.
Indian therefore Modi.
If he wasn't Hindu, they wouldn't say it.
There's a lot to criticise Sunak for. Doing so via his race is just demeaning.
You're the one bringing race into it. Did Sunak say in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law” or not? I don't know but that's what the Guardian reported:
I know Rochdale reasonably well. Strapline: at least we're not Oldham.
The Northwest is full of struggling post-industrial towns, but there are a handful which are doing ok-ish. Stockport. Bury. Warrington. Preston, at a push. I'd struggle to think of any more.
Doesn't it depress you, all the rubbish towns?
The country is broken. I keep pointing this out. Massive structural issues in the economy which go back decades and transcend the Lab/Con duopoly. The towns are rubbish because we had this stupid idea of bulldozing so much of what made them unique to build ugly anonymous concrete things. With the old jobs gone and no investment in anything.
Rochdale should be one of the places that wins. Beautiful Pennines setting combined with proximity to Manchester and good transport links. Industrial heritage, a proud local (Lancastrian) culture. But instead its got a gutted town centre and congested roads that make it hard to get anywhere, with crumbling relics of factories and victorian warehouses.
The Rochdale Canal is gorgeous.
Apart from the bit through Rochdale. (And Newton Heath, but that goes without saying.)
It may not be for long.
Canals are now having their public funding salami sliced year by year by Short-Term Rishi.
I was amazed when I found out that the Canal and River Trust gets £200m a year or so, and views its main stakeholders/beneficiaries as 30,000 boaters not the larger public or towpath users.
And they are barriered off to mobility aids ... everywhere. And often kept to "one fat labrador" width for the sake of a weltanschauung that came off a 1970s chocolate box. In 1910 two fat boat-horses could pass each other on most of these.
(Vanilla quotes broken, my bit starts here…)
I’m going to the pub so not going to dwell on this but… hard disagree on that. CRT spends immense amounts of money on the larger public and would love to spend more. The boaters are forever moaning about it. It has basically rebranded itself as a “waterways and wellbeing charity”.
I could say more - this is kind of my specialist subject and used to be my job - but it’s Friday and there’s a pint of Old Rosie waiting for me.
I'd be interested in a wider picture - I'm going from various CRT statements, codes of practice, practical experience and so on.
Excellent and thoughtful article @RochdalePioneers about a rather bleak subject matter
Sadly for places like Rochdale I cannot see any future apart from more of the same
Nowadays in large urban conurbations the main focus seems to be the nearest big city to the detriment of the towns surrounding it.
The sad reality of places like Rochdale is the likes of labour did nothing for them and neither did the Tories and local politicians just play the blame game. To which we get a vacuum which gets filled.
It’s all very sad.
Nobody with any power to improve the lot of poor people places like this is interested in doing so. The value of Rochdale and other such places, as far as they're concerned, is as somewhere to dump and abandon unwanted asylum seekers and homeless families from London, and that's probably about it.
Very much in their interest to keep'em keen though. Red wall, blue wall, small boats, HS2 will-it-won't-it, levelling up, powerhouse, maybe some tax credits. Even a new Industrial Estate. With roads, if you're lucky.
But basically, vote for us or it'll be even worse. And if you die young, that'd be just spiffing.
Yeah pretty much, but it's all lies of course. It doesn't matter who people vote for, they will get the same policies - which, broadly speaking, are:
1. We don't want to raise taxes on people who can pay more, because they are our own social class (ageing homeowners, business executives and robber landlords) and they have far too much money and/or too many votes to be touched, so...
2. We're going to make sure that we fill the country with floods of people and don't build any houses for them (we pretend to be interested in doing something about these problems but we are liars,) in order to try to suppress wages to suit business and pump up house prices to appeal to the voters we actually care about
3. Without adequate revenue we have no choice but to run everything (except the state pension) down, but we're going to deflect blame from ourselves by pinning it all on the mistakes of the last lot and/or profligate local councils
And thus the Red and Blue Tories, who are functionally identical, will throw the ticking time bomb of systemic socio-economic collapse between them every few years, doing almost nothing to address it and keeping their fingers crossed that they're either in Opposition or already dead of old age by the time it detonates.
Been saying the same for a while, new labour and tories, same policies....they led us here more of the same is ridiculous isnt going to get us out of it. Sadly the people proposing more of the same arent being affected so they dont see a problem
A good example of this is wfh...I cant think of anything that improves levelling up more when you can move to a cheaper area, spend your salary there and also reduces housing pressure and congestion. Both labour and tories think everyone should go back to the office though
I missed that. I saw JRM and one or two other Tories pushing for people go back into offices, and it's been a predictable theme from the Mail, Express and Telegraph (for their readers who largely don't work at all) but I hadn't seen Labour pushing an anti-wfh line.
Do you have any examples?
All councils labour and tory are heavily invested in office space to rent. They wont like the collapse of the market indeed slough council which is labour run has already gone bankrupt because of their investment in commercial property
True but that's not the same as "Both labour and tories think everyone should go back to the office".
Some councils might prefer it because of their dodgy investment decisions maybe but I don't see Labour pushing it as a policy. I'm not even sure the Tories are pushing it as a policy, though some Tory MPs clearly can't get their heads around the idea that people might actually work when at home.
I would say a range of policies that look to generate hope for our young in particular.
That means much more housing, both social and private. It means the sort of policies that were talked about in levelling up but which were never funded. It means sorting out the ridiculous burden of further educational debt. It means policies that encourage training by the same sort of incentives that we saw for capital spending. It means rebalancing the tax burden away from those who work for a living towards those with capital. It means abolishing the triple lock and accepting that pensioners simply cannot be protected from the pain of the young and working poor. It means prioritising transport and other infrastructure. It means accepting that social care should be paid for out of the estates of the deceased rather than taxing the minimum wage worker. It means recognition that the purpose of government is not to provide a rather cosy lifestyle for the few million that work for it but to provide the actual services that people need.
Have I lost every seat yet?
'It means accepting that social care should be paid for out of the estates of the deceased rather than taxing the minimum wage worker.' May's 2017 lost majority after her similar dementia tax plans put paid to either of the main parties ever touching that for at home care, of course it already applies for residential care anyway.
Further education debt requires a proper market in fees, so economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial should rightly cost the most as those graduates will earn most and creative arts or humanities subjects at lower ranked universities cost least as those graduates will tend to earn least after university.
Hunt has already cut NI and may yet cut income tax.
The minimum wage and benefits have been increased with inflation anyway, abolishing the triple lock would hit the poorest pensioners reliant on the state pension most, those with big private pensions would hardly notice any difference
"rightly cost most" - secure for you and your rich friends. That's the trouble. Means crap quality results, because selecting from a smaller pool. Not what the UK wants or needs.
Not sure if it’s the new YouGov poll giving Labour a 26-point lead, but there’s growing chat at Westminster that next week’s Budget could herald a May election. Crazy? “Beyond May I see only risks,” says one Tory insider. No10 sources insist they are still working to autumn.
Autumn or later could result in a moderate defeat or an even more horrific defeat.
I'm not sure Sunak cares whether the first or last outcome happens, so he'll gamble in hope of the second coming true.
It’s the modelling on boats.
The fact there’s also a covid report in summer, a million more people taking on higher mortgage payments this year, forcast for lack of growth until saved, not by the government, but by Taylor Swift, and now economists predicting energy costs will send inflation going back upwards again, before the end of the year - all this forecasting is meaningless, mere hundreds and thousands on top a trifle.
Europe properly filled the tank on immigrants last year, to record levels, previously when this has happened, 12 months later the Channel has experienced record crossings. The May 2nd trifle is the UK governments modelling shows an explosion of unpreventable boat crossings from July onwards.
If during July this years trend crosses last years comparative line, a year due to the clever Albanian deal, the “let me tell you - we have reduced boat crossings by a third, Mr Speaker” oft repeated line Rishi can fairly campaign on today, will no longer exist. It’s gone. If, whilst still in government waiting for that general election, this years trend crosses the worst ever comparative year line, the Conservative Party itself will no longer exist. Simples.
What happens to the Tory party if the modelling proves true, as it has proved spot on in previous years - they are still in government waiting for that election - worse than that off on their summer holidays, whilst boat crossings eclipse last years and keep on coming?
A picture saves me typing a thousand words - just think of the Raft of the Medusa.
A Raft of the Medusa political event.
It’s May 2nd.
Also, if he leaves it longer than May, there'll be no one left to campaign for the Tories. They'll lose another massive chunk of councillors. Do it in May, Rishi. You'll lose horribly, but less horribly than if you leave it.
Sunak clearly wants to be PM for some reason, so I still think he'll choose to remain PM for an extra seven months by holding on for an election in December.
Sunak would rather be PM for as long as possible than go a bit early even if it saves a few Tory MPs seats. Unless he gets a Major 1992 shock victory he will be off to corporate boards in Silicon Valley or some IMF or WTO job as soon as possible after losing a general election anyway and his main priority is ensuring he has a reasonable period as PM on that CV he will be taking to those jobs
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
As I said, racism.
Indian therefore Modi.
If he wasn't Hindu, they wouldn't say it.
There's a lot to criticise Sunak for. Doing so via his race is just demeaning.
You're the one bringing race into it. Did Sunak say in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law” or not? I don't know but that's what the Guardian reported:
I would say a range of policies that look to generate hope for our young in particular.
That means much more housing, both social and private. It means the sort of policies that were talked about in levelling up but which were never funded. It means sorting out the ridiculous burden of further educational debt. It means policies that encourage training by the same sort of incentives that we saw for capital spending. It means rebalancing the tax burden away from those who work for a living towards those with capital. It means abolishing the triple lock and accepting that pensioners simply cannot be protected from the pain of the young and working poor. It means prioritising transport and other infrastructure. It means accepting that social care should be paid for out of the estates of the deceased rather than taxing the minimum wage worker. It means recognition that the purpose of government is not to provide a rather cosy lifestyle for the few million that work for it but to provide the actual services that people need.
Have I lost every seat yet?
'It means accepting that social care should be paid for out of the estates of the deceased rather than taxing the minimum wage worker.' May's 2017 lost majority after her similar dementia tax plans put paid to either of the main parties ever touching that for at home care, of course it already applies for residential care anyway.
Further education debt requires a proper market in fees, so economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial should rightly cost the most as those graduates will earn most and creative arts or humanities subjects at lower ranked universities cost least as those graduates will tend to earn least after university.
Hunt has already cut NI and may yet cut income tax.
The minimum wage and benefits have been increased with inflation anyway, abolishing the triple lock would hit the poorest pensioners reliant on the state pension most, those with big private pensions would hardly notice any difference
May was right about social care. Goodness knows how long it will take us to recognise that. The cut in NI was welcome but a very small step in the right direction. The idea that earnings are taxed more heavily than rental receipts or dividends is frankly obscene. If the poorest pensioners need more help then it should be given to them on a needs basis, not as a universal gift to many of the most cash rich in our society.
The more I’ve thought about it, I think Rishi’s apparently trivial “I will save us all from all this nasty division” Sermonette to us could become quite important to the history’s written of this election year.
Much the same way as infamy of John Major’s Back to Basic’s reference in political history, Sunak might just have unleashed a rod of thorns for his and the Conservative Party’s own back.
From now, anything from him or his party, that stokes or exploits division, is going to be mercilessly leapt on as disgusting hypocrisy.
That’s 100% of the counter attack on woke - references to Starmer not knowing what is a woman, the language used about boat crossings and immigration in every single Conservative election leaflet, every article Braverman or any Tory writes for a newspaper and every interview any of them give, cannot now contain anything that allows opponents and media to yell “Go and then Sunak, put action where your mouth is - act!”
Before you dismiss this as nothing this evening, Sunak may just have made one very serious political blunder.
Rishi is just as much an Islamophobe as his mentor, one Narendra Modi.
What makes you call Narendra Modi his mentor?
"Sunak has been received warmly in Delhi, where he has been accompanied by his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of one of India’s most famous business tycoons. He said in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law”."
That doesn't make Modi his mentor. The India's son in law thing was what the Indian media dubbed him. You're not seriously endorsing this nonsense Foxy?
Have you gone full tonto?
As I said, racism.
Indian therefore Modi.
If he wasn't Hindu, they wouldn't say it.
There's a lot to criticise Sunak for. Doing so via his race is just demeaning.
You're the one bringing race into it. Did Sunak say in advance of the trip that he hoped to be greeted like “India’s son-in-law” or not? I don't know but that's what the Guardian reported:
Comments
Might get a few waverers take a second look...
May guarantees a horrific defeat.
Autumn or later could result in a moderate defeat or an even more horrific defeat.
I'm not sure Sunak cares whether the first or last outcome happens, so he'll gamble in hope of the second coming true.
Lee would still have the Conservative whip, if only apologised for pushing the crude conspiracy about Khan?
But tonight Sunak drew the clearest line in the sand. He’s made calling things out and attacking division, spite and hate, personal, with his own name against this campaign, so from today the buck stops with him to act on everyone, without hierarchy or partiality, who steps out of line on this.
That, politically, is how bloody serious what Sunak done this evening is - he’s strapped himself to an “Ed Stone of Promise” to make the stoking and exploiting of division, that admittedly has been going on to an industrial scale, so much better.
Starting with where the buck obviously stops, with his own behaviours, and that of his governing party.
🫣
Canals are now having their public funding salami sliced year by year by Short-Term Rishi.
I was amazed when I found out that the Canal and River Trust gets £200m a year or so, and views its main stakeholders/beneficiaries as 30,000 boaters not the larger public or towpath users.
And they are barriered off to mobility aids ... everywhere. And often kept to "one fat labrador" width for the sake of a weltanschauung that came off a 1970s chocolate box. In 1910 two fat boat-horses could pass each other on most of these.
(Vanilla quotes broken, my bit starts here…)
I’m going to the pub so not going to dwell on this but… hard disagree on that. CRT spends immense amounts of money on the larger public and would love to spend more. The boaters are forever moaning about it. It has basically rebranded itself as a “waterways and wellbeing charity”.
I could say more - this is kind of my specialist subject and used to be my job - but it’s Friday and there’s a pint of Old Rosie waiting for me.
The key question is to when he adopted wearing that fucking hat?
Some MPs saying speech welcome but PM could/should have done weeks ago. A podium moment outside No 10 highly unusual & ups the ante. Former cab minister: “A good speech with no action. If you go out at 6pm on a Friday with emergency speech, surely you have to actually outline action?”
Former cabinet minister texts: Some of us have been saying this for months [that PM makes this speech] “At the least he should have done this last week, not in response to Galloway. And he had no policies which made it quite weak”
I am as cynical as everyone else, but the Tories current spending on online ads only makes sense if we are heading for a May election.
So it will probably be in January...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68434579
"Dave Prowse ***IS*** Darth Vader".
James Earl Jones is The VOICE of Darth Vader!
But basically, vote for us or it'll be even worse. And if you die young, that'd be just spiffing.
Keegan did one as did Jon Pertwee.
Network released a couple of DVDs of public info films a few years back. Lovely stuff.
The fact there’s also a covid report in summer, a million more people taking on higher mortgage payments this year, forcast for lack of growth until saved, not by the government, but by Taylor Swift, and now economists predicting energy costs will send inflation going back upwards again, before the end of the year - all this forecasting is meaningless, mere hundreds and thousands on top a trifle.
Europe properly filled the tank on immigrants last year, to record levels, previously when this has happened, 12 months later the Channel has experienced record crossings. The May 2nd trifle is the UK governments modelling shows an explosion of unpreventable boat crossings from July onwards.
If during July this years trend crosses last years comparative line, a year due to the clever Albanian deal, the “let me tell you - we have reduced boat crossings by a third, Mr Speaker” oft repeated line Rishi can fairly campaign on today, will no longer exist. It’s gone. If, whilst still in government waiting for that general election, this years trend crosses the worst ever comparative year line, the Conservative Party itself will no longer exist. Simples.
What happens to the Tory party if the modelling proves true, as it has proved spot on in previous years - they are still in government waiting for that election - worse than that off on their summer holidays, whilst boat crossings eclipse last years and keep on coming?
A picture saves me typing a thousand words - just think of the Raft of the Medusa.
A Raft of the Medusa political event.
It’s May 2nd.
https://twitter.com/BethRigby/status/1763640186716454979?t=hJ4-RUTqxQM3kwkZIVLFMw&s=19
Rish! purposefully grips his lectern – but shows he has no grip of the country
https://t.co/stQAA2Dc7C
https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/09/rishi-sunak-to-meet-india-pm-narendra-modi-to-push-for-trade-deal-but-will-avoid-bringing-up-russia
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2024/jan/30/the-20m-renovation-of-rochdale-town-hall-in-pictures
1. We don't want to raise taxes on people who can pay more, because they are our own social class (ageing homeowners, business executives and robber landlords) and they have far too much money and/or too many votes to be touched, so...
2. We're going to make sure that we fill the country with floods of people and don't build any houses for them (we pretend to be interested in doing something about these problems but we are liars,) in order to try to suppress wages to suit business and pump up house prices to appeal to the voters we actually care about
3. Without adequate revenue we have no choice but to run everything (except the state pension) down, but we're going to deflect blame from ourselves by pinning it all on the mistakes of the last lot and/or profligate local councils
And thus the Red and Blue Tories, who are functionally identical, will throw the ticking time bomb of systemic socio-economic collapse between them every few years, doing almost nothing to address it and keeping their fingers crossed that they're either in Opposition or already dead of old age by the time it detonates.
Levelling up is total bullshit, it's never happening.
Rishi Sunak is the politician’s anti-politician. If he ever came close to a real politician, he might dissolve on contact. Just as well there are so few of them in his cabinet. You could almost call it a talent – the unerring ability to do the wrong thing. To strike the wrong tone. To misjudge the situation. Every time you think things couldn’t get any worse, Rish! appears to say: “Hold my Coke.”
Certainly Galloway is not going to sit quietly on the benches and Starmer is his principal target
Furthermore, like Farage, the media will promote everything he says and does and they are both very much mavericks
This is going to be a very divisive and difficult few weeks and months, and with a tax cutting budget next week, increases in the pensions, benefits and living wage in early April plus £300 drop in energy prices and the additional budget goodies, why not
Speeches for unity by both wings of a political establishment which is so disassociated with society, its problems and its needs are a feeble and inadequate response to the election of George Galloway. People are seriously pissed, and you surely have to be pissed to vote for Gorgeous.
Our politicians need to engage with peoples disenchantment, not pour disdain on it. We have created a country where significant elements simply do not trust or believe in what the political establishment offers. Galloway's election is both the price and proof of failure and the answer cannot be more of the same.
I wish this was not so. I expressed the misplaced hope that this charlatan was a spent force. I was wrong but so is this response.
But in the autumn it will be BACK!
Rishi knows this.
But who is Princess Fiona?
It's not just the Conservative Party that needs flushing down the toilet.
Have you gone full tonto?
Indian therefore Modi.
If he wasn't Hindu, they wouldn't say it.
There's a lot to criticise Sunak for. Doing so via his race is just demeaning.
Do you have any examples?
Sunak is a long way past "a bit" crap.
https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/09/rishi-sunak-to-meet-india-pm-narendra-modi-to-push-for-trade-deal-but-will-avoid-bringing-up-russia
My own view on this matter is that engagement with our political system is a waste of time and energy. The Overton Window has narrowed to a singularity, therefore meaningful change is impossible and democracy has effectively ended. Elections are window dressing to make it look as if regime change is possible but they're really of no more relevance or value than those in Russia - we just have to be content that our oligarchy is less malignant than their monarchy.
If you want to make a difference then do charity work or support a community group. Voting achieves nothing.
"India's son in law"
?
"Modi is his mentor"
I would say a range of policies that look to generate hope for our young in particular.
That means much more housing, both social and private.
It means the sort of policies that were talked about in levelling up but which were never funded.
It means sorting out the ridiculous burden of further educational debt.
It means policies that encourage training by the same sort of incentives that we saw for capital spending.
It means rebalancing the tax burden away from those who work for a living towards those with capital.
It means abolishing the triple lock and accepting that pensioners simply cannot be protected from the pain of the young and working poor.
It means prioritising transport and other infrastructure.
It means accepting that social care should be paid for out of the estates of the deceased rather than taxing the minimum wage worker.
It means recognition that the purpose of government is not to provide a rather cosy lifestyle for the few million that work for it but to provide the actual services that people need.
Have I lost every seat yet?
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&sca_esv=acff160628c8f4be&sxsrf=ACQVn0-nr02_Wduea_lKUiI5J8RK57wihg:1709327870247&q=Mud+It's+Better+Than+Working&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgFuLSz9U3MMwpKSyoVAKzjSsqjIyStcSzk630c0uLM5P1E4tKMotLrBJzkkpzixexyviWpih4lqgXKzillpSkFimEZCTmKYTnF2Vn5qUDALoJcAdSAAAA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjdy4rE_tOEAxU9XEEAHRl9CfEQ9OUBegQIJBAH&biw=1197&bih=707&dpr=1
As for nuance, my robustness allowed me to make a lot of money on these things.
In my experience, if you can not say what you mean, you can never mean what you say. The details are everything.
Plus in general elections GOTV matters less than in local elections and by elections as most voters turn out to vote anyway, knocked up or not. It only really matters in a handful of ultra marginals won by 1000 votes or less
One of the best things I have ever seen in the cinema.
Or maybe I am just easily pleased.
(Trivia: "The Voice" is provided by Marianne Faithful.)
Further education debt requires a proper market in fees, so economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial should rightly cost the most as those graduates will earn most and creative arts or humanities subjects at lower ranked universities cost least as those graduates will tend to earn least after university.
Hunt has already cut NI and may yet cut income tax.
The minimum wage and benefits have been increased with inflation anyway, abolishing the triple lock would hit the poorest pensioners reliant on the state pension most, those with big private pensions would hardly notice any difference
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12026287/Rishi-Sunaks-mother-law-claims-reason-tycoon-husband-son-laws-success.html
Sudha Murthy has a friendship with Sambhaji Bhide, the former head of the RSS, the Hindutva organisation.
https://www.siasat.com/sudha-murthy-seeks-blessings-from-right-wing-leader-sambhaji-bhide-2452160/
I’m going to the pub so not going to dwell on this but… hard disagree on that. CRT spends immense amounts of money on the larger public and would love to spend more. The boaters are forever moaning about it. It has basically rebranded itself as a “waterways and wellbeing charity”.
I could say more - this is kind of my specialist subject and used to be my job - but it’s Friday and there’s a pint of Old Rosie waiting for me.
I'd be interested in a wider picture - I'm going from various CRT statements, codes of practice, practical experience and so on.
Some councils might prefer it because of their dodgy investment decisions maybe but I don't see Labour pushing it as a policy. I'm not even sure the Tories are pushing it as a policy, though some Tory MPs clearly can't get their heads around the idea that people might actually work when at home.
And that makes Modi Sunak's mentor?
You don't find that tenuous? Or racist? I do.
By that kind of twisted logic Kevin Bacon is the mentor of the last few Prime Ministers and everyone else.
The cut in NI was welcome but a very small step in the right direction. The idea that earnings are taxed more heavily than rental receipts or dividends is frankly obscene.
If the poorest pensioners need more help then it should be given to them on a needs basis, not as a universal gift to many of the most cash rich in our society.
Better to lose an election than get Trussed by Tory MPs