It was and is an opportunity to do things that were best for us, to be responsible for our own decisions and to be able to hold those making those decisions accountable.
Even if that were true, how's it working out for you...
Not well to be frank. We don’t have a government that is serious about governing. It’s a problem across the board, not just in Brexit related matters.
Did anyone watch the political debate on Newsnight?
The Reform Party representative was beyond comical. He said straight out that Reform would totally eliminate NHS waiting lists within 2 years.
Victoria Derbyshire asked what would that cost. Reform man didn't know. Derbyshire then said that per the Reform website the cost is £30 billion.
I mean, seriously, given all the other pressures the country is facing it is beyond fantastical to pretend we are going to eliminate NHS waiting lists and also beyond fantastical that we are going to spend £30 billion even attempting to do so.
This kind of Alice in Wonderland nonsense is of no help to anyone and can only do much more damage to the country - encouraging the public to think that such things are possible and then when they can't be delivered people get even more disappointed leading to even more reactionary views.
Based on this debate, as a Conservative supporter I have no hesitation at all in saying my second choice for Government would be Labour. Reform would be a complete disaster.
I think that costing rather implausible.
REFUK plan to exempt NHS staff from basic rate income tax for 3 years, give 20% tax relief for private health insurance and write off 10% of NHS student debt per year of service. All that is before a further patient is treated.
Their main cost item would be to give patients the right to go private and bill the NHS if they cannot see a GP in 3 days or Consultant in 3 weeks. Presumably that also covers the costs of any investigations, imaging, pathology too.
Not entirely daft policies, but way more expensive than they imagine, and grossly overestimating the physical capacity of the private sector.
Reform are not a serious party and make no real pretence at having an agenda for government. Since we now have Brexit I am not sure I see the point but there is clearly a market for those who want simplistic solutions to difficult problems.
Given the current spend on the NHS and the pressures on the system I think it inevitable that spending will increase by at least another £30bn a year by the end of the next Parliament. Whether that produces any material benefit in terms of waiting times remains to be seen.
What was Brexit, if not a simplistic solution to a difficult problem?
It was and is an opportunity to do things that were best for us, to be responsible for our own decisions and to be able to hold those making those decisions accountable.
I completely agree that it was not a solution in itself and any who thought that the world would magically get better without the hard work were delusional.
Unfortunately, that's not the impression given by either the leadership or the followership of the Brexit movement.
Which is part of the reason why its popularity has followed the trajectory it has.
That fucking fire kept zigzagging around the whole chamber, like it was alive. Also my hands became tungsten with emerald sparkles and I decided on a new motto in life: “that looks weird. Don’t look at it”
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
A plot of real wages compared to other western European nations, CANZUK and the USA combined with high house prices (Masked for ages by tiny interest rates) with the now implied high mortgages and rents shows the problem. Also the FTSE and GBP vs EUR and USD long term don't paint a pretty picture.
Housing costs are very age related.
For those who have paid off their mortgage and have savings then higher interest rates are a good thing.
As to wages they're dependent upon productivity increases if they're to increase in real terms.
Now productivity is affected by government and employer decisions but workers still need to be looking at how they can improve their own skillsets.
I've been thinking about my Rochdale predictions, which were too high for all the main parties, and 10% too low for Galloway's roof, which I put at 30%. Apart from an anti-politics feel and being blindsided by Mr Tully, who somebody knew about locally, I think I may have underestimated the Muslim population of Rochdale, for which I took a 2011 census figure of 24%, and the degree to which differential turnout of that population (and non turnout of people for anyone else) could bias the outcome.
On that note, I see EC gives an ethnic white % of 63% for the constituency. I don't know if the figures in each case are whole population or registered voters, and I don't know what sliver is non-White, non-Muslim, but the 24% figure I took was a few % too low in 2024.
I do this not only to cover off Rochdale but to note that Ashton, which I do know better, shows as being 79% white and has a definite non-white, non-Muslim segment, as the most Hindu town in GM after Bolton.
As likely Northern targets for Galloway go, Ashton seems a good way down the list and there is enough red-wallness that I don't see the different Corbyn angle getting him over the Lyne either.
Why didn't you use the 2021 census? Were the figures not available?
I looked at Galloway's vote share over a number of years vs Muslim electorate (taken from a 2011 commons research paper). Rather than find a more recent figure that may have been in a different format (e.g. population including kids rather than electorate), I just made an allowance for few % increase in what were fairly broad ranges estimates of the likely vote shares I expected, but I might have under done it a little. There's little doubt as well that Galloway's vote share outperformed how much he has courted the Muslim vote in the past by at least 5%.
That fucking fire kept zigzagging around the whole chamber, like it was alive. Also my hands became tungsten with emerald sparkles and I decided on a new motto in life: “that looks weird. Don’t look at it”
A possible alternative would be “don’t take weird drugs with uncertain effects “. Personally, I’m going with that.
New members must be “introduced” by an existing member and we’d been expecting Jeremy Corbyn to take these steps alongside him. In the end it was an MP called Neale Hanvey, who defected from the SNP to Alex Salmond’s Alba Party in 2021. It’s quaint to see such solidarity between former chat-show hosts on Russia Today.
Corbyn, we would later be told, had “forgotten” he had an urgent appointment that he couldn’t get out of. We were not told precisely what it was but, strictly as a point of fact, we are reaching the last few feasible days of marmalade-making season.
Hardly surprising. For all his faults, Corbyn is a party man, and Galloway's main interest is self-advancement. Galloway seeks to harm Labour; Corbyn disagrees with the party leadership on how best to advance Labour.
I think that's right. I subscribe to Corbyn's Peace and Justice newsletter, and it's 95% about international affairs, often on issues which get almost no media coverage, e.g. how to understand what's happening in the DRC or Pakistan:
I think he probably feels (rightly IMO) that tragedies that affect vast number of people over decades are actually more important than arguing whether we should have 1p off National Insurance.
I can still imagine his standing for re-election and Galloway endorsing him - you can't be responsible for who supports you. But if he does, it'll be to pursue his international interests, not to bash Labour like Galloway. I don't see him standing for Mayor, for the same reason.
Parody Rishi Sunak @Parody_PM · 12h Just to be clear - if you want to protest against the killing of innocent people, you will suffer the full force of the law; but if you want to tear foxes apart for fun - fill your boots
Remember when Just Stop Oil activists got arrested for blocking off some streets in protest?
This is why Sunak's Downing Street speech was so obviously a sham. He's as much responsible for this kind of behaviour as anyone else - including appointing a culture warrior like Lee Anderson as deputy chairman.
Also, at best, the Tories' being on the same podium or tarmac argument acts against him.
People have been warning Edinburgh Lib Dems about this for ages in regard to LTNs and cycle infrastructure - they look very stupid now that an 11 year old cyclist was killed on the way to school in ACH's constituency.
No idea if it is relevant to the poor child, but the shopping area does look messy - sudden changes of direction (a drivber has to shift pretty much a whole lane just coming through, turn the camera view through 180)/chicanes combined with on-main-road end-on parking and road junctions/blind driveways and a hideously located bus stop. And that's on a rat run between two major commuter roads. I'd be careful as a pedestrian there - never mind a cyclist. And no cyclist provisions that I can spot.
UK negotiators fly to India in last-ditch effort to seal free-trade deal Exclusive: Team will try to resolve goods and services issues amid fears Delhi is holding out for a Labour government
I'm puzzled. Why would Modi want to hold out for a Labour government?
Why give a "win" to the fag end Government of a party that will be out of office for a decade? There's diplomatic benefit in waiting until Labour get in, and giving them an early foreign policy success.
And if, in desperation to get something, Sunak/Cameron make so many concessions the deal is irresistable, take that. India is in a strong negotiating position with a weak and desperate British PM.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
A plot of real wages compared to other western European nations, CANZUK and the USA combined with high house prices (Masked for ages by tiny interest rates) with the now implied high mortgages and rents shows the problem. Also the FTSE and GBP vs EUR and USD long term don't paint a pretty picture.
Housing costs are very age related.
For those who have paid off their mortgage and have savings then higher interest rates are a good thing.
As to wages they're dependent upon productivity increases if they're to increase in real terms.
Now productivity is affected by government and employer decisions but workers still need to be looking at how they can improve their own skillsets.
Nationally that's not going to be true. Americans seemingly unable to tie their own shoelaces yet earning six figures regularly call Dave Ramsey for money advice.
That fucking fire kept zigzagging around the whole chamber, like it was alive. Also my hands became tungsten with emerald sparkles and I decided on a new motto in life: “that looks weird. Don’t look at it”
A possible alternative would be “don’t take weird drugs with uncertain effects “. Personally, I’m going with that.
But I had profound insights! Like:
“Why am I yawning constantly”
“Does this moth REALLY like me”
“Make the Spanish speaking centaur go away”
And one thought was actually useful:
Everything is funny. Everything. Even death (however sad or tragic). Maybe death especially. Because it makes a mockery of us all, and all our vanities and projects and reveries. Death is literally laughable
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
Did anyone watch the political debate on Newsnight?
The Reform Party representative was beyond comical. He said straight out that Reform would totally eliminate NHS waiting lists within 2 years.
Victoria Derbyshire asked what would that cost. Reform man didn't know. Derbyshire then said that per the Reform website the cost is £30 billion.
I mean, seriously, given all the other pressures the country is facing it is beyond fantastical to pretend we are going to eliminate NHS waiting lists and also beyond fantastical that we are going to spend £30 billion even attempting to do so.
This kind of Alice in Wonderland nonsense is of no help to anyone and can only do much more damage to the country - encouraging the public to think that such things are possible and then when they can't be delivered people get even more disappointed leading to even more reactionary views.
Based on this debate, as a Conservative supporter I have no hesitation at all in saying my second choice for Government would be Labour. Reform would be a complete disaster.
I think that costing rather implausible.
REFUK plan to exempt NHS staff from basic rate income tax for 3 years, give 20% tax relief for private health insurance and write off 10% of NHS student debt per year of service. All that is before a further patient is treated.
Their main cost item would be to give patients the right to go private and bill the NHS if they cannot see a GP in 3 days or Consultant in 3 weeks. Presumably that also covers the costs of any investigations, imaging, pathology too.
Not entirely daft policies, but way more expensive than they imagine, and grossly overestimating the physical capacity of the private sector.
Reform are not a serious party and make no real pretence at having an agenda for government. Since we now have Brexit I am not sure I see the point but there is clearly a market for those who want simplistic solutions to difficult problems.
Given the current spend on the NHS and the pressures on the system I think it inevitable that spending will increase by at least another £30bn a year by the end of the next Parliament. Whether that produces any material benefit in terms of waiting times remains to be seen.
What was Brexit, if not a simplistic solution to a difficult problem?
It was and is an opportunity to do things that were best for us, to be responsible for our own decisions and to be able to hold those making those decisions accountable.
I completely agree that it was not a solution in itself and any who thought that the world would magically get better without the hard work were delusional.
Unfortunately, that's not the impression given by either the leadership or the followership of the Brexit movement.
Which is part of the reason why its popularity has followed the trajectory it has.
They weren't given that impression but they might now think they were.
Everything on the side of a bus has been delivered.
In three years time people will be complaining that Starmer hasn't delivered on promises they think he made but didn't.
UK negotiators fly to India in last-ditch effort to seal free-trade deal Exclusive: Team will try to resolve goods and services issues amid fears Delhi is holding out for a Labour government
I'm puzzled. Why would Modi want to hold out for a Labour government?
The sticking point is immigration which he thinks Labour may be more flexible on
Plus Labour gets value from “the lady government couldn’t get it done but we did” and may give up something for that win
I doubt they'll even seal a deal with Labour.
Dehli are hideously bureaucratic in everything they do and the politics for Modi will be that he's seen to have 'defeated' the former colonial overlords, which will stall it forevermore.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
Parody Rishi Sunak @Parody_PM · 12h Just to be clear - if you want to protest against the killing of innocent people, you will suffer the full force of the law; but if you want to tear foxes apart for fun - fill your boots
Remember when Just Stop Oil activists got arrested for blocking off some streets in protest?
This is why Sunak's Downing Street speech was so obviously a sham. He's as much responsible for this kind of behaviour as anyone else - including appointing a culture warrior like Lee Anderson as deputy chairman.
Also, at best, the Tories' being on the same podium or tarmac argument acts against him.
People have been warning Edinburgh Lib Dems about this for ages in regard to LTNs and cycle infrastructure - they look very stupid now that an 11 year old cyclist was killed on the way to school in ACH's constituency.
No idea if it is relevant to the poor child, but the shopping area does look messy - sudden changes of direction (a drivber has to shift pretty much a whole lane just coming through, turn the camera view through 180)/chicanes combined with on-main-road end-on parking and road junctions/blind driveways and a hideously located bus stop. And that's on a rat run between two major commuter roads. I'd be careful as a pedestrian there - never mind a cyclist. And no cyclist provisions that I can spot.
That road is terrible and has been for years. You could easily tidy it up and add some cycling infrastructure, but it’s in the middle of the NIMBY zone so the council won’t touch it.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
This is really bad coverage by the BBC. They will justify this as being part of the whole, but this is just like conversation in a pub about the fact that life is what it is and we all want a free owl.
The BBC have the resources to discuss expertly what the options really are, and why we are where we are, and shouldn't undermine this with pub talk.
BTW another massive failing is that the BBC forgets, every day and all the time, that balance is not achieved by a discussion of the deaf between two extremes, with no-one present to represent the view that both extremes are wrong and superficial.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
A plot of real wages compared to other western European nations, CANZUK and the USA combined with high house prices (Masked for ages by tiny interest rates) with the now implied high mortgages and rents shows the problem. Also the FTSE and GBP vs EUR and USD long term don't paint a pretty picture.
Housing costs are very age related.
For those who have paid off their mortgage and have savings then higher interest rates are a good thing.
As to wages they're dependent upon productivity increases if they're to increase in real terms.
Now productivity is affected by government and employer decisions but workers still need to be looking at how they can improve their own skillsets.
Nationally that's not going to be true. Americans seemingly unable to tie their own shoelaces yet earning six figures regularly call Dave Ramsey for money advice.
Those callers have enormous student debt, huge credit card debt and multiple car loans.
Its perfectly possible to have high earnings and still live beyond your means.
Roadworks for extra emergency areas between J32 and J35A still ongoing this morning. The signs say it'll be complete by Winter 2024 so the contractors must be working to the astronomical timeline rather than meteorological. I'll update when we get to the equinox.
It's a bit weird for them to change their approach to apologise for past beliefs and deeds.
Either there are immutable values or there aren't.
Politicians shouldn't apologise for past deeds because mores change. But religious eternal values aren't supposed to change.
That's a rather Orthodox Muslim approach.
The whole Bible is about evolution of belief, from the personal, tribal God of Genesis, through to the later prophets, the New Testament and Paul's letters, and that's before even starting on evolving theology within the church.
It could equally be a fundamentalist Christian approach. Either way, it rejects rational analysis of the evidence in favour of blind faith, so probably criticising it analytically is not going to have much effect on its proponents.
The Anglican Church has always accepted evolving ideas in theology, so not a relevant argument in this instance.
Certain "Fundamentalist" churches get things the wrong way round and seem to prioritise the OT, though even they tend to skip past the weirder bits of Leviticus.
I (as someone a lot of people would call fundamentalist) would say that the values and mind of God, as revealed through his word are immutable. However, that doesn't mean everyone who has ever done anything claiming to act in God's name got everything right. Every age has it's errors, some of which are particularly egregious. For an obvious example I don't think you'll find anything in the N.T. about forcibly converting people - quite a lot of various brands of Jesus's followers have tried it anyway over the years, with pretty much universally bad results. This doesn't make either God or the Bible wrong - it just means that the people concerned would have done better to see how the N.T. church grew and tried copying that.
I also think it's important to understand the O.T. in it's context - a lot of the laws which cause people fits of the vapors now were set as maximum limits - "You may do up to this" - when in the surrounding cultures, people did things which were much worse. That doesn't necessarily imply that God was pleased when people got to those limits he had set. Jesus's teaching on divorce is instructive; he bans divorce (despite it being permitted in the O.T.) with the comment that "Moses (i.e. the O.T. law) permitted it because of the hardness of your hearts". I.e. God had never liked or approved of divorce, he merely tolerated it.
With respect, if you are open to the idea that the bible records a process which, as with divorce, is open to a number of real possibilities rather than absolute finality, and that it has to be read and understood with regard to its context, and that those who wrote the bible and claimed to act in God's name didn't always get it right then, thankfully, you are not a fundamentalist.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
This is really bad coverage by the BBC. They will justify this as being part of the whole, but this is just like conversation in a pub about the fact that life is what it is and we all want a free owl.
The BBC have the resources to discuss expertly what the options really are, and why we are where we are, and shouldn't undermine this with pub talk.
BTW another massive failing is that the BBC forgets, every day and all the time, that balance is not achieved by a discussion of the deaf between two extremes, with no-one present to represent the view that both extremes are wrong and superficial.
It is interesting that no-one here raises an eyebrow at the chap complaining about losing child benefit on £70,000 a year.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
This sort of journalism strikes me as ripe for a complete AI takeover. Just as I mused that AI recruitment consultants will be more warm and personable than HR and recruitment functionaries, so our new overlords will likely be more thorough and accurate than the existing clowns who write this stuff up.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
If that old bloke mentions AI one more fucking time I'm going to throw myself into that fire.
She was exceptionally lovely. The high priestess of the rite, I kept trying to work out her erotic dynamic with the ayahuasquero (much nearer my age)
Incidentally AI is the talk of the commune. (A highly intellectual affluent temporary commune). I didn’t have to bring it up. One guy I know quite well (Swiss property tycoon) volunteered non-apropos that he’s been having nightmares where Sam Altman is Satan
I accept this will take a while to percolate down to language tutors in Wakefield, but in elite circles it is the obsession de nos jours
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
This sort of journalism strikes me as ripe for a complete AI takeover. Just as I mused that AI recruitment consultants will be more warm and personable than HR and recruitment functionaries, so our new overlords will likely be more thorough and accurate than the existing clowns who write this stuff up.
It's pretty clear that 80%+ of all recruitment emails I receive are top and tailed with my name alone, and the rest carbon copied.
Far too many only really 'bother' to understand you if you say 'yes', and then they make you do all the work to qualify yourself.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
This sort of journalism strikes me as ripe for a complete AI takeover. Just as I mused that AI recruitment consultants will be more warm and personable than HR and recruitment functionaries, so our new overlords will likely be more thorough and accurate than the existing clowns who write this stuff up.
That is absolutely true. The BBC could sack 98% of its written journalism creators and replace it with a well chosen AI and it would immediately IMPROVE
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
I think the interesting comparison is with the polling from ~1994-1995 - consistently similar to what we have today (lows around 20%, averages in the mid 20s). A further 2-3 years of good management in positive conditions were the underlying factor in a polling recover that significantly reduced Labour's lead by polling day.
But we've got the 1994 figures in the equivalent of late 1996, when the Tory average was already up to 29-30%. And today's averages are still declining.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
This is really bad coverage by the BBC. They will justify this as being part of the whole, but this is just like conversation in a pub about the fact that life is what it is and we all want a free owl.
The BBC have the resources to discuss expertly what the options really are, and why we are where we are, and shouldn't undermine this with pub talk.
BTW another massive failing is that the BBC forgets, every day and all the time, that balance is not achieved by a discussion of the deaf between two extremes, with no-one present to represent the view that both extremes are wrong and superficial.
It is interesting that no-one here raises an eyebrow at the chap complaining about losing child benefit on £70,000 a year.
That we've already had that argument a dozen times or so probably accounts for it.
More generally, I don't see how any likely budget will make much difference to the long running absence of any coherent policy to address our deep rooted economic problems.
Whatever is announced will just be fiddling around the margins.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
This sort of journalism strikes me as ripe for a complete AI takeover. Just as I mused that AI recruitment consultants will be more warm and personable than HR and recruitment functionaries, so our new overlords will likely be more thorough and accurate than the existing clowns who write this stuff up.
It's pretty clear that 80%+ of all recruitment emails I receive are top and tailed with my name alone, and the rest carbon copied.
Far too many only really 'bother' to understand you if you say 'yes', and then they make you do all the work to qualify yourself.
They're a waste of time and space.
We’re all gonna be redundant. I saw an expert prediction yesterday that AI will write NYT number 1 bestselling novels by 2030. Six years away! We’re all fucked, its best to laugh at the absurdity
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
This sort of journalism strikes me as ripe for a complete AI takeover. Just as I mused that AI recruitment consultants will be more warm and personable than HR and recruitment functionaries, so our new overlords will likely be more thorough and accurate than the existing clowns who write this stuff up.
We're going to have a lot of unemployed and unemployable low skilled but high student debt middle class people before the end of it.
People might reminisce about the full employment of the 2020s as they once did about the full employment of the 1960s.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
For some context, if their actual general election result were to be below 30% of the vote, it would be their worst result in over a century:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7529/ ...The Conservative’s best result in terms of seats won since 1945 was at the 1983 General Election, when 397 MPs were elected. Its highest share of the vote was 49.7% in 1955. At the 1997 General Election, there were 165 Conservative MPs elected and the party received 30.7% of the vote. This was its worst performance in terms of share of the vote and seats won since 1918. In 2019, the Party won 365 seats. This was the most they have held since 1987...
Roadworks for extra emergency areas between J32 and J35A still ongoing this morning. The signs say it'll be complete by Winter 2024 so the contractors must be working to the astronomical timeline rather than meteorological. I'll update when we get to the equinox.
Winter 2024 could either mean this winter (astronomically speaking) or next. The Stoneleigh junction on the A46 is due to be completed in Winter 2022 but is currently held up because of 'supply issues'. Apparently HS2 have grabbed all the available time machines. When they release them in 2021 it will enable the junction to be completed on schedule.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
This sort of journalism strikes me as ripe for a complete AI takeover. Just as I mused that AI recruitment consultants will be more warm and personable than HR and recruitment functionaries, so our new overlords will likely be more thorough and accurate than the existing clowns who write this stuff up.
It's pretty clear that 80%+ of all recruitment emails I receive are top and tailed with my name alone, and the rest carbon copied.
Far too many only really 'bother' to understand you if you say 'yes', and then they make you do all the work to qualify yourself.
They're a waste of time and space.
We’re all gonna be redundant. I saw an expert prediction yesterday that AI will write NYT number 1 bestselling novels by 2030. Six years away! We’re all fucked, its best to laugh at the absurdity
Before Brexit we could throw Dan Hannan out at an election.
Now he makes our laws for life
There was a piece in the Grauniad the other week by Henry Hill of ConHome. Amidst much wailing and gnashing of teeth, he said something like, and a paraphrase but not by much, ‘Apart from Brexit, what have the Tories done to make this country more conservative?’
And, when you strip everything away, that's what Brexit is for. That’s why the funders funded it, that’s why the nutters on the right agitated for it, that’s the whole shebang right there.
In Slaughterhouse 5 Vonnegut - and again I paraphrase - says something along the lines of ‘That’s the nice thing about war, everyone gets a little something out of it.’ (IIRC it relates to poor old Edgar Derby being shot for looting after retrieving a teapot from the smouldering remains of Dresden.)
Aaaanyway, that was what got Brexit over the line - in the twin Leave campaigns there was a little bit of something for everybody. Before the referendum I spoke to a left-wing guy who’d retired and had bought a motor-home and spent 9 months a year toddling round the continent and couldn’t wait to vote Leave because it would mean everything could be nationalised, or something. When I pointed out that if we left he probably wouldn't be able to have unfettered access to the EU he simply waived it away. Simply wouldn’t happen that leaving the EU would affect his ability to travel freely and without constraint in the EU.
I haven’t seen him since but I wonder how he enjoys his 90 days max.
And that’s the tale of Brexit - everyone saw what they wanted to see and waived away any drawbacks, believing the guff the Leave campaigns and Johnson told them, dressed up in lovely fluffy terms like sovereignty and control.
And all the lies were packaged attractively to get the country to become more Conservative. To make us more parochial, insular. Dumber. More divided. More unequal. Poorer services. Poorer environmental protections. Poorer everything.
It wasn’t about benefitting the vast majority of people, it was about being able to exploit them. And people are realising this.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
This is really bad coverage by the BBC. They will justify this as being part of the whole, but this is just like conversation in a pub about the fact that life is what it is and we all want a free owl.
The BBC have the resources to discuss expertly what the options really are, and why we are where we are, and shouldn't undermine this with pub talk.
BTW another massive failing is that the BBC forgets, every day and all the time, that balance is not achieved by a discussion of the deaf between two extremes, with no-one present to represent the view that both extremes are wrong and superficial.
It is interesting that no-one here raises an eyebrow at the chap complaining about losing child benefit on £70,000 a year.
If you want specifics, yes, eyebrow raised. It's just pub talk in a posher sort of wine bar.
Mr. Monkey, while I agree on the broad point of the weird referendum conditions meaning Leave could mean almost anything because there wasn't a defined alternative, I do strongly disagree that people were persuaded by Johnson et al. I'm sure some were, but, for the most part, the bloody awful campaigns (both were atrocious) were not convincing.
Many possible ways it could've gone differently, but the failure of Remain on the economic angle was bizarre and a huge advantage for Leave.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
This sort of journalism strikes me as ripe for a complete AI takeover. Just as I mused that AI recruitment consultants will be more warm and personable than HR and recruitment functionaries, so our new overlords will likely be more thorough and accurate than the existing clowns who write this stuff up.
It's pretty clear that 80%+ of all recruitment emails I receive are top and tailed with my name alone, and the rest carbon copied.
Far too many only really 'bother' to understand you if you say 'yes', and then they make you do all the work to qualify yourself.
They're a waste of time and space.
We’re all gonna be redundant. I saw an expert prediction yesterday that AI will write NYT number 1 bestselling novels by 2030. Six years away! We’re all fucked, its best to laugh at the absurdity
"expert prediction"
LOL.
So far every “expert prediction” since the advent of GPT2 in 2019-ish, has proved to be overly CONSERVATIVE, they keep shortening their timelines, sometimes drastically - eg AGI by 2029 as against “maybe by the 2080s, or never”
Of course it may suddenly and unexpectedly pause. Or cease. But so far there are no signs of this
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
This sort of journalism strikes me as ripe for a complete AI takeover. Just as I mused that AI recruitment consultants will be more warm and personable than HR and recruitment functionaries, so our new overlords will likely be more thorough and accurate than the existing clowns who write this stuff up.
It's pretty clear that 80%+ of all recruitment emails I receive are top and tailed with my name alone, and the rest carbon copied.
Far too many only really 'bother' to understand you if you say 'yes', and then they make you do all the work to qualify yourself.
They're a waste of time and space.
We’re all gonna be redundant. I saw an expert prediction yesterday that AI will write NYT number 1 bestselling novels by 2030. Six years away! We’re all fucked, its best to laugh at the absurdity
No we're not. And if 98% of current writing were farmed out to AI it would be no loss. It would leave all the good stuff and to spare.
And it will always be true that opinions are free but facts are expensive.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
For some context, if their actual general election result were to be below 30% of the vote, it would be their worst result in over a century:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7529/ ...The Conservative’s best result in terms of seats won since 1945 was at the 1983 General Election, when 397 MPs were elected. Its highest share of the vote was 49.7% in 1955. At the 1997 General Election, there were 165 Conservative MPs elected and the party received 30.7% of the vote. This was its worst performance in terms of share of the vote and seats won since 1918. In 2019, the Party won 365 seats. This was the most they have held since 1987...
The Tories haven't been above 30% in a poll for almost nine months - and they have a maximum of another seven before the GE must be called.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
This is really bad coverage by the BBC. They will justify this as being part of the whole, but this is just like conversation in a pub about the fact that life is what it is and we all want a free owl.
The BBC have the resources to discuss expertly what the options really are, and why we are where we are, and shouldn't undermine this with pub talk.
BTW another massive failing is that the BBC forgets, every day and all the time, that balance is not achieved by a discussion of the deaf between two extremes, with no-one present to represent the view that both extremes are wrong and superficial.
It is interesting that no-one here raises an eyebrow at the chap complaining about losing child benefit on £70,000 a year.
I would raise an eyebrow because it’s wrong - it occurs at £50,000 to £60,000 a year.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
This sort of journalism strikes me as ripe for a complete AI takeover. Just as I mused that AI recruitment consultants will be more warm and personable than HR and recruitment functionaries, so our new overlords will likely be more thorough and accurate than the existing clowns who write this stuff up.
That is absolutely true. The BBC could sack 98% of its written journalism creators and replace it with a well chosen AI and it would immediately IMPROVE
Could you give us a line on your views about how many and what % of writers (and perhaps which) for the Spectator will be AI replaceable?
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
For some context, if their actual general election result were to be below 30% of the vote, it would be their worst result in over a century:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7529/ ...The Conservative’s best result in terms of seats won since 1945 was at the 1983 General Election, when 397 MPs were elected. Its highest share of the vote was 49.7% in 1955. At the 1997 General Election, there were 165 Conservative MPs elected and the party received 30.7% of the vote. This was its worst performance in terms of share of the vote and seats won since 1918. In 2019, the Party won 365 seats. This was the most they have held since 1987...
The Tories haven't been above 30% in a poll for almost nine months - and they have a maximum of another seven before the GE must be called.
Unlike 1997 though they have a pretty significant Reform vote to squeeze. And squeezed it will be. For all the "Reform voters will sit it out", come the election when faced with woke immigrant-loving, knee taking, can't define a woman Labour or the incompetent but comfortingly "on our side" sounding Conservatives they'll hold their noses and vote Tory.
Did anyone watch the political debate on Newsnight?
The Reform Party representative was beyond comical. He said straight out that Reform would totally eliminate NHS waiting lists within 2 years.
Victoria Derbyshire asked what would that cost. Reform man didn't know. Derbyshire then said that per the Reform website the cost is £30 billion.
I mean, seriously, given all the other pressures the country is facing it is beyond fantastical to pretend we are going to eliminate NHS waiting lists and also beyond fantastical that we are going to spend £30 billion even attempting to do so.
This kind of Alice in Wonderland nonsense is of no help to anyone and can only do much more damage to the country - encouraging the public to think that such things are possible and then when they can't be delivered people get even more disappointed leading to even more reactionary views.
Based on this debate, as a Conservative supporter I have no hesitation at all in saying my second choice for Government would be Labour. Reform would be a complete disaster.
I think that costing rather implausible.
REFUK plan to exempt NHS staff from basic rate income tax for 3 years, give 20% tax relief for private health insurance and write off 10% of NHS student debt per year of service. All that is before a further patient is treated.
Their main cost item would be to give patients the right to go private and bill the NHS if they cannot see a GP in 3 days or Consultant in 3 weeks. Presumably that also covers the costs of any investigations, imaging, pathology too.
Not entirely daft policies, but way more expensive than they imagine, and grossly overestimating the physical capacity of the private sector.
Reform are not a serious party and make no real pretence at having an agenda for government. Since we now have Brexit I am not sure I see the point but there is clearly a market for those who want simplistic solutions to difficult problems.
Given the current spend on the NHS and the pressures on the system I think it inevitable that spending will increase by at least another £30bn a year by the end of the next Parliament. Whether that produces any material benefit in terms of waiting times remains to be seen.
What was Brexit, if not a simplistic solution to a difficult problem?
It was and is an opportunity to do things that were best for us, to be responsible for our own decisions and to be able to hold those making those decisions accountable.
I completely agree that it was not a solution in itself and any who thought that the world would magically get better without the hard work were delusional.
Brexit allows us to do things we don't want while switching off things we do want.
This sovereignty feels very hypothetical. Hence the consensus that Brexit was a mistake, I believe.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
This is really bad coverage by the BBC. They will justify this as being part of the whole, but this is just like conversation in a pub about the fact that life is what it is and we all want a free owl.
The BBC have the resources to discuss expertly what the options really are, and why we are where we are, and shouldn't undermine this with pub talk.
BTW another massive failing is that the BBC forgets, every day and all the time, that balance is not achieved by a discussion of the deaf between two extremes, with no-one present to represent the view that both extremes are wrong and superficial.
It is interesting that no-one here raises an eyebrow at the chap complaining about losing child benefit on £70,000 a year.
I would raise an eyebrow because it’s wrong - it occurs at £50,000 to £60,000 a year.
How much would a change from £50k personal income to £100k household income cost the treasury ?
On topic, I agree with the header. There's zero chance of Corbyn defecting to Galloway's bunch.
Galloway has made it clear that his main enemy is Labour. Corbyn has always been clear that his main enemy is the Tories. The idea that, for example, Corbyn would want to participate in defenestrating Angela Rayner is ludicrous.
And all the lies were packaged attractively to get the country to become more Conservative. To make us more parochial, insular. Dumber. More divided. More unequal. Poorer services. Poorer environmental protections. Poorer everything.
It wasn’t about benefitting the vast majority of people, it was about being able to exploit them. And people are realising this.
Trump is running the same playbook, cheered on by some of the same people.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
This is really bad coverage by the BBC. They will justify this as being part of the whole, but this is just like conversation in a pub about the fact that life is what it is and we all want a free owl.
The BBC have the resources to discuss expertly what the options really are, and why we are where we are, and shouldn't undermine this with pub talk.
BTW another massive failing is that the BBC forgets, every day and all the time, that balance is not achieved by a discussion of the deaf between two extremes, with no-one present to represent the view that both extremes are wrong and superficial.
It is interesting that no-one here raises an eyebrow at the chap complaining about losing child benefit on £70,000 a year.
I would raise an eyebrow because it’s wrong - it occurs at £50,000 to £60,000 a year.
How much would a change from £50k personal income to £100k household income cost the treasury ?
Before Brexit we could throw Dan Hannan out at an election.
Now he makes our laws for life
There was a piece in the Grauniad the other week by Henry Hill of ConHome. Amidst much wailing and gnashing of teeth, he said something like, and a paraphrase but not by much, ‘Apart from Brexit, what have the Tories done to make this country more conservative?’
And, when you strip everything away, that's what Brexit is for. That’s why the funders funded it, that’s why the nutters on the right agitated for it, that’s the whole shebang right there.
In Slaughterhouse 5 Vonnegut - and again I paraphrase - says something along the lines of ‘That’s the nice thing about war, everyone gets a little something out of it.’ (IIRC it relates to poor old Edgar Derby being shot for looting after retrieving a teapot from the smouldering remains of Dresden.)
Aaaanyway, that was what got Brexit over the line - in the twin Leave campaigns there was a little bit of something for everybody. Before the referendum I spoke to a left-wing guy who’d retired and had bought a motor-home and spent 9 months a year toddling round the continent and couldn’t wait to vote Leave because it would mean everything could be nationalised, or something. When I pointed out that if we left he probably wouldn't be able to have unfettered access to the EU he simply waived it away. Simply wouldn’t happen that leaving the EU would affect his ability to travel freely and without constraint in the EU.
I haven’t seen him since but I wonder how he enjoys his 90 days max.
And that’s the tale of Brexit - everyone saw what they wanted to see and waived away any drawbacks, believing the guff the Leave campaigns and Johnson told them, dressed up in lovely fluffy terms like sovereignty and control.
And all the lies were packaged attractively to get the country to become more Conservative. To make us more parochial, insular. Dumber. More divided. More unequal. Poorer services. Poorer environmental protections. Poorer everything.
It wasn’t about benefitting the vast majority of people, it was about being able to exploit them. And people are realising this.
What sorts of thing would count as 'making this country more conservative'?
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
For some context, if their actual general election result were to be below 30% of the vote, it would be their worst result in over a century:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7529/ ...The Conservative’s best result in terms of seats won since 1945 was at the 1983 General Election, when 397 MPs were elected. Its highest share of the vote was 49.7% in 1955. At the 1997 General Election, there were 165 Conservative MPs elected and the party received 30.7% of the vote. This was its worst performance in terms of share of the vote and seats won since 1918. In 2019, the Party won 365 seats. This was the most they have held since 1987...
The Tories haven't been above 30% in a poll for almost nine months - and they have a maximum of another seven before the GE must be called.
Unlike 1997 though they have a pretty significant Reform vote to squeeze. And squeezed it will be. For all the "Reform voters will sit it out", come the election when faced with woke immigrant-loving, knee taking, can't define a woman Labour or the incompetent but comfortingly "on our side" sounding Conservatives they'll hold their noses and vote Tory.
And there will also be tactical voting by Labour/Lib Dem/Green supporters which is not reflected in crude polling numbers.
People on the left who would prefer a Tory government to a Labour government. Out of some sort of twisted "principle".
They need to take a long, hard look at themselves.
Labour's worst is a hell of a lot better than the Tories' best.
OF course, it doesn't really impact them, in their salons and seminars.
Red Tories Blue Tories same thing.
This stupid "Labour's worst is a hell of a lot better than the Tories' best" is total bollocks
Red Tory Genocide supporting/ Blue Tory Genocide supporting
Red Tory Blue Tory NHS underinvestment privatisation
Red Tory/Blue Tory austerity
Red Tory / Blue Tory war mongering
Red Tory / Blue Tory authoritarians
Red Tory / Blue Tory benefit claimant haters
Red Tory / Blue Tory immigrant scapegoaters
All same thing.
Its the blind faith of the" Lab is best" idiots that need to take a long, hard look at themselves.
Why will they be any different apart from the tie/ rosette
I get that, my friend, I really do. I see them as two centralising authoritarian cheeks of the same arse as well.
The problem is, as you know, a truly socialist agenda has only won once in recent times - in 1945 - and that was under unique circumstances. You might argue Corbyn could have won in 2017 and perhaps had the election gone on another week he might have won but with the antipathy in the Parliamentary Party at that time he would not have been able to deliver a full blooded socialist agenda - you know that and I know that.
Indeed, he might well have tried a Mitterrand-style approach from thr early 1980s but that didn't end well.
I'm not a socialist because I don't believe the State should have the power and control - power should truly sit with the people and that means emasculating both Whitehall and Westminster and I'm not convinced socialism is about that.
The other problem is the people Starmer needs to get on his side aren't socialists - they are conservatives - so a broadly conservative message is going to be the one which resonates. Once in office, with his majority, Starmer can do as he sees fit. I expect him to be a social democrat in office which isn't what this country needs but it will paper over the cracks for a decade or so. As with Butskellism in 1979, we can all see the current economic and political model is failing and has failed but we don't have an idea as to with what we should replace it.
Th eone thing we know is the populist "Right" doesn't have any answers. The new BSW Party in Germany might be a route worth following if you want to harnass a populist vote on the "Left" but I'm not convinced they have the answers either.
A systematic analysis of the conservative Justices' claim to be originalities.
Selective Originalism and Judicial Role Morality https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4347334 The Justices of the Supreme Court increasingly claim to be originalists. Yet close examination reveals that the Court’s actual reliance on originalist analysis is highly selective. In large swathes of cases, the avowedly originalist Justices make little or no effort to justify their rulings by reference to original constitutional meanings.
This Article defines and documents the phenomenon of selective originalism. Having done so, the Article then explores the cultural and jurisprudential conditions in which selective original-ism, which typically abets substantively conservative decisionmaking, has developed and now flourishes. The Article criticizes selective originalism for its inconsistency and intellectual dishonesty. But it also explores the obvious question that criticisms frame: Why do the selectively originalist Justices not respond by articulating a more complex doctrine that would seek to justify their only-selective reliance on originalist premises?..
And maybe it’s right. I just survived an intense dose of ayahuasca in the Colombian jungle where at one point I thought I was being visited by tiny luminous “entities” and yet here I am. Alive. Didn’t even puke or crap myself. YET
I suspect there’s the competitive influence of high-quality TV series as well.
90 mins is about the perfect length for a film, maybe stretching back to 80 and on to 120. Exceptions to this really have to make their case through quality (e.g. Godfather).
The competition from TV should make films shorter. If a story is too long to tell in 100 minutes then it's a story to be told in at least two episodes. Make a short series rather than a single film.
There are a lot of rubbish films where they've tried to squash a story into a film's running time, the film is still too long and the story is too rushed.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
This is really bad coverage by the BBC. They will justify this as being part of the whole, but this is just like conversation in a pub about the fact that life is what it is and we all want a free owl.
The BBC have the resources to discuss expertly what the options really are, and why we are where we are, and shouldn't undermine this with pub talk.
BTW another massive failing is that the BBC forgets, every day and all the time, that balance is not achieved by a discussion of the deaf between two extremes, with no-one present to represent the view that both extremes are wrong and superficial.
Really good post. If you are paying for a news service in the way we do, they should be able to delve a bit more.
Nothing wrong with some fluff or colour too, but unlike others they can commit to more substantive stuff to be more prominent.
- No, Corbyn will not defect to Galloway's latest vehicle. He may well, however, contest Islington as either an independent or with his own party. I'd be amazed if he saw any value to himself in accepting Galloway's leadership, and Galloway certainly wouldn't accept anyone else's.
- I agree, Galloway will try to unseat Rayner, and will fail.
- Galloway can describe himself how he likes but no genuine left-winger would align with the right in various guises, from defending the highly socially conservative Tehran regime to being the 'guest star' at Grassroots Out Brexit launch, to being an RT mouthpiece of the outright fascist Kremlin. He may well be left-wing in some respects but he's mainly just anti-West. He doesn't really give a damn about whether Labour or the Tories are in power.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
This is really bad coverage by the BBC. They will justify this as being part of the whole, but this is just like conversation in a pub about the fact that life is what it is and we all want a free owl.
The BBC have the resources to discuss expertly what the options really are, and why we are where we are, and shouldn't undermine this with pub talk.
BTW another massive failing is that the BBC forgets, every day and all the time, that balance is not achieved by a discussion of the deaf between two extremes, with no-one present to represent the view that both extremes are wrong and superficial.
It is interesting that no-one here raises an eyebrow at the chap complaining about losing child benefit on £70,000 a year.
If you want specifics, yes, eyebrow raised. It's just pub talk in a posher sort of wine bar.
It is funny. I've mentioned this before with people on over £100,000 salary-sacrificing in order to retain child benefits. Traditionally Conservatives argued for means-testing while giving benefits to the higher-paid was a socialist policy (so that everyone had a stake in the benefits system and would not wind it down).
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
This sort of journalism strikes me as ripe for a complete AI takeover. Just as I mused that AI recruitment consultants will be more warm and personable than HR and recruitment functionaries, so our new overlords will likely be more thorough and accurate than the existing clowns who write this stuff up.
It's pretty clear that 80%+ of all recruitment emails I receive are top and tailed with my name alone, and the rest carbon copied.
Far too many only really 'bother' to understand you if you say 'yes', and then they make you do all the work to qualify yourself.
They're a waste of time and space.
We’re all gonna be redundant. I saw an expert prediction yesterday that AI will write NYT number 1 bestselling novels by 2030. Six years away! We’re all fucked, its best to laugh at the absurdity
"expert prediction"
LOL.
So far every “expert prediction” since the advent of GPT2 in 2019-ish, has proved to be overly CONSERVATIVE, they keep shortening their timelines, sometimes drastically - eg AGI by 2029 as against “maybe by the 2080s, or never”
Of course it may suddenly and unexpectedly pause. Or cease. But so far there are no signs of this
I was listening to More or Less podcasts the other day while doing something boring. One was on the probability of playing in the ABA depending upon your height. Also the fitness and skill levels in relation to your height. It was fascinating. Basically if you are 6' the chances of getting to play are very remote and you would have to be very skillful and fit, but by the time you get to be 7' you can pretty well just walk into a team. Sounds obvious but there was a lot of detail. He reckoned the best basketball player of all time was just 5' 3". I assume he ran through peoples legs.
Anyway that is not the point. The interesting thing was he used AI to do his research and write his book and made a big point of it. He said it took him 30 days to write whereas he thinks it would have taken years otherwise and there was a lot of data compilation and manipulation, each one of which took hours instead of a month to do.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
This is really bad coverage by the BBC. They will justify this as being part of the whole, but this is just like conversation in a pub about the fact that life is what it is and we all want a free owl.
The BBC have the resources to discuss expertly what the options really are, and why we are where we are, and shouldn't undermine this with pub talk.
BTW another massive failing is that the BBC forgets, every day and all the time, that balance is not achieved by a discussion of the deaf between two extremes, with no-one present to represent the view that both extremes are wrong and superficial.
It is interesting that no-one here raises an eyebrow at the chap complaining about losing child benefit on £70,000 a year.
I would raise an eyebrow because it’s wrong - it occurs at £50,000 to £60,000 a year.
How much would a change from £50k personal income to £100k household income cost the treasury ?
Which is so small it should be removed because of the economic damage it creates
The Gov't will be being denied tax revenue at the 40% marginal rate as it probably contributes to changing behaviour (More into a pension). Gov't should probably just bin it tbh.
Is Ashton under Lyne and the borough of Tameside generally famous for anything ?
Most other Lancashire towns have noted sports teams, food connections or historical events.
Two World Cup winning footballers were born in Ashton. One is Geoff Hurst - who is the other?
(Clue - it’s not Jimmy Armfield who was born in nearby Denton).
Is Geoff Hurst the only World Cup winning footballer to have played first class cricket?
I vaguely recall a letter to The Times when publicity-shy Tony Blair knighted Hurst, complaining this devalued the Honours system as from now on, every Englishman who scored a hat-trick in a World Cup final would expect a knighthood.
It's a bit weird for them to change their approach to apologise for past beliefs and deeds.
Either there are immutable values or there aren't.
Politicians shouldn't apologise for past deeds because mores change. But religious eternal values aren't supposed to change.
That's a rather Orthodox Muslim approach.
The whole Bible is about evolution of belief, from the personal, tribal God of Genesis, through to the later prophets, the New Testament and Paul's letters, and that's before even starting on evolving theology within the church.
It could equally be a fundamentalist Christian approach. Either way, it rejects rational analysis of the evidence in favour of blind faith, so probably criticising it analytically is not going to have much effect on its proponents.
The Anglican Church has always accepted evolving ideas in theology, so not a relevant argument in this instance.
Certain "Fundamentalist" churches get things the wrong way round and seem to prioritise the OT, though even they tend to skip past the weirder bits of Leviticus.
I (as someone a lot of people would call fundamentalist) would say that the values and mind of God, as revealed through his word are immutable. However, that doesn't mean everyone who has ever done anything claiming to act in God's name got everything right. Every age has it's errors, some of which are particularly egregious. For an obvious example I don't think you'll find anything in the N.T. about forcibly converting people - quite a lot of various brands of Jesus's followers have tried it anyway over the years, with pretty much universally bad results. This doesn't make either God or the Bible wrong - it just means that the people concerned would have done better to see how the N.T. church grew and tried copying that.
I also think it's important to understand the O.T. in it's context - a lot of the laws which cause people fits of the vapors now were set as maximum limits - "You may do up to this" - when in the surrounding cultures, people did things which were much worse. That doesn't necessarily imply that God was pleased when people got to those limits he had set. Jesus's teaching on divorce is instructive; he bans divorce (despite it being permitted in the O.T.) with the comment that "Moses (i.e. the O.T. law) permitted it because of the hardness of your hearts". I.e. God had never liked or approved of divorce, he merely tolerated it.
With respect, if you are open to the idea that the bible records a process which, as with divorce, is open to a number of real possibilities rather than absolute finality, and that it has to be read and understood with regard to its context, and that those who wrote the bible and claimed to act in God's name didn't always get it right then, thankfully, you are not a fundamentalist.
It all depends on what you consider the fundamentals!
I would regard a literal interpretation of the Bible as contradicting the fundamentals of Christian teaching.
Ah, now I have the "likes" bug too on my elitebook.
Likewise. It looks like a tooltip containing the word "Like" is obliterating the previous hover behaviour.
The question is whether @rcs1000 changed this behaviour for some reason, possibly to hide his own past likes, or (more likely) whether the good people at Vanilla and/or Wordpress blindsided him and us quite arbitrarily.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
This is really bad coverage by the BBC. They will justify this as being part of the whole, but this is just like conversation in a pub about the fact that life is what it is and we all want a free owl.
The BBC have the resources to discuss expertly what the options really are, and why we are where we are, and shouldn't undermine this with pub talk.
BTW another massive failing is that the BBC forgets, every day and all the time, that balance is not achieved by a discussion of the deaf between two extremes, with no-one present to represent the view that both extremes are wrong and superficial.
It is interesting that no-one here raises an eyebrow at the chap complaining about losing child benefit on £70,000 a year.
If you want specifics, yes, eyebrow raised. It's just pub talk in a posher sort of wine bar.
It is funny. I've mentioned this before with people on over £100,000 salary-sacrificing in order to retain child benefits. Traditionally Conservatives argued for means-testing while giving benefits to the higher-paid was a socialist policy (so that everyone had a stake in the benefits system and would not wind it down).
And it’s true, means tested benefits appeal less to voters who don’t think they’ll ever get them. Or age-specific benefits. We see that, frankly, with the pensions triple lock. Most people of working age just assume there will be no old age pension by the time they retire, or it will kick in at 95.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
For some context, if their actual general election result were to be below 30% of the vote, it would be their worst result in over a century:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7529/ ...The Conservative’s best result in terms of seats won since 1945 was at the 1983 General Election, when 397 MPs were elected. Its highest share of the vote was 49.7% in 1955. At the 1997 General Election, there were 165 Conservative MPs elected and the party received 30.7% of the vote. This was its worst performance in terms of share of the vote and seats won since 1918. In 2019, the Party won 365 seats. This was the most they have held since 1987...
The Tories haven't been above 30% in a poll for almost nine months - and they have a maximum of another seven before the GE must be called.
Unlike 1997 though they have a pretty significant Reform vote to squeeze. And squeezed it will be. For all the "Reform voters will sit it out", come the election when faced with woke immigrant-loving, knee taking, can't define a woman Labour or the incompetent but comfortingly "on our side" sounding Conservatives they'll hold their noses and vote Tory.
Some may. But I wouldn't bank on most of the Reform vote returning. It didn't in 1997, when the Referendum Party and UKIP polled getting on for 1m votes between them, and it didn't in 2015, when the election was very much in the balance and UKIP polled almost 4m votes.
Minor parties are often squeezed but not every time - and when it doesn't happen, it's usually because either the voter thinks the tactical vote for the bigger party isn't worth it anyway (why vote Tory if they're still going to lose?), or if they're so angry with both bigger parties, or at least with the one they're closer to, that they care less which of them wins than that they express support for the minor party and/or opposition to the others. Those factors are very much in play this year.
As for diversity, seriously? Yes, one or two councils go a bit overboard on "diversity" (whatever that means) but most do the bare minimum if that. Even Conservative-run authorities cover equality and diversity as part of staff training for no other reason than to make staff aware their "customers" come, quite literally, in all shapes and sizes and Council services need to reflect that. The Mail might want to whip up hysteria among its frightened elderly leadership by trying to convince billions are "wasted" on Council diversity schemes but it's nonsense.
The use of consultants is a far bigger and more serious issue. There's nothing wrong with getting in expertise to help with specific projects or areas of service but the use of consultants or self-employed contractors as a quick way to fill vacant senior and middle management posts is a growing practice and these staff, brought in on a supposedly interim basis, cost councils a lot as they are generally paid much more than the actual salary for the role.
It's a bit weird for them to change their approach to apologise for past beliefs and deeds.
Either there are immutable values or there aren't.
Politicians shouldn't apologise for past deeds because mores change. But religious eternal values aren't supposed to change.
That's a rather Orthodox Muslim approach.
The whole Bible is about evolution of belief, from the personal, tribal God of Genesis, through to the later prophets, the New Testament and Paul's letters, and that's before even starting on evolving theology within the church.
It could equally be a fundamentalist Christian approach. Either way, it rejects rational analysis of the evidence in favour of blind faith, so probably criticising it analytically is not going to have much effect on its proponents.
The Anglican Church has always accepted evolving ideas in theology, so not a relevant argument in this instance.
Certain "Fundamentalist" churches get things the wrong way round and seem to prioritise the OT, though even they tend to skip past the weirder bits of Leviticus.
I (as someone a lot of people would call fundamentalist) would say that the values and mind of God, as revealed through his word are immutable. However, that doesn't mean everyone who has ever done anything claiming to act in God's name got everything right. Every age has it's errors, some of which are particularly egregious. For an obvious example I don't think you'll find anything in the N.T. about forcibly converting people - quite a lot of various brands of Jesus's followers have tried it anyway over the years, with pretty much universally bad results. This doesn't make either God or the Bible wrong - it just means that the people concerned would have done better to see how the N.T. church grew and tried copying that.
I also think it's important to understand the O.T. in it's context - a lot of the laws which cause people fits of the vapors now were set as maximum limits - "You may do up to this" - when in the surrounding cultures, people did things which were much worse. That doesn't necessarily imply that God was pleased when people got to those limits he had set. Jesus's teaching on divorce is instructive; he bans divorce (despite it being permitted in the O.T.) with the comment that "Moses (i.e. the O.T. law) permitted it because of the hardness of your hearts". I.e. God had never liked or approved of divorce, he merely tolerated it.
With respect, if you are open to the idea that the bible records a process which, as with divorce, is open to a number of real possibilities rather than absolute finality, and that it has to be read and understood with regard to its context, and that those who wrote the bible and claimed to act in God's name didn't always get it right then, thankfully, you are not a fundamentalist.
It all depends on what you consider the fundamentals!
I would regard a literal interpretation of the Bible as contradicting the fundamentals of Christian teaching.
Much simpler to just ignore the whole god and old testament stuff and just regard Jesus as a radical moral philosopher. Jesus, Buddha, Nanak. All top blokes who can inspire us and lead us to live better lives.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
This sort of journalism strikes me as ripe for a complete AI takeover. Just as I mused that AI recruitment consultants will be more warm and personable than HR and recruitment functionaries, so our new overlords will likely be more thorough and accurate than the existing clowns who write this stuff up.
It's pretty clear that 80%+ of all recruitment emails I receive are top and tailed with my name alone, and the rest carbon copied.
Far too many only really 'bother' to understand you if you say 'yes', and then they make you do all the work to qualify yourself.
They're a waste of time and space.
We’re all gonna be redundant. I saw an expert prediction yesterday that AI will write NYT number 1 bestselling novels by 2030. Six years away! We’re all fucked, its best to laugh at the absurdity
"expert prediction"
LOL.
So far every “expert prediction” since the advent of GPT2 in 2019-ish, has proved to be overly CONSERVATIVE, they keep shortening their timelines, sometimes drastically - eg AGI by 2029 as against “maybe by the 2080s, or never”
Of course it may suddenly and unexpectedly pause. Or cease. But so far there are no signs of this
Not really. Just look at your hype-filled verbal diarrhea on the subject. How many times have you screeched about rumours of AGI being just around the corner?
People are hoping to make millions or billions out of this; it is therefore important for them to get the hype train going full-bore. Idiots then fall for the hype. Yes, the tech is good. It is also deeply flawed.
You may remember a similar hype 5-10 years ago about autonomous cars; I wonder if we have any exalted poster who fell for that hype hook, line and sinker?
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
This sort of journalism strikes me as ripe for a complete AI takeover. Just as I mused that AI recruitment consultants will be more warm and personable than HR and recruitment functionaries, so our new overlords will likely be more thorough and accurate than the existing clowns who write this stuff up.
It's pretty clear that 80%+ of all recruitment emails I receive are top and tailed with my name alone, and the rest carbon copied.
Far too many only really 'bother' to understand you if you say 'yes', and then they make you do all the work to qualify yourself.
They're a waste of time and space.
We’re all gonna be redundant. I saw an expert prediction yesterday that AI will write NYT number 1 bestselling novels by 2030. Six years away! We’re all fucked, its best to laugh at the absurdity
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
For some context, if their actual general election result were to be below 30% of the vote, it would be their worst result in over a century:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7529/ ...The Conservative’s best result in terms of seats won since 1945 was at the 1983 General Election, when 397 MPs were elected. Its highest share of the vote was 49.7% in 1955. At the 1997 General Election, there were 165 Conservative MPs elected and the party received 30.7% of the vote. This was its worst performance in terms of share of the vote and seats won since 1918. In 2019, the Party won 365 seats. This was the most they have held since 1987...
The Tories haven't been above 30% in a poll for almost nine months - and they have a maximum of another seven before the GE must be called.
Unlike 1997 though they have a pretty significant Reform vote to squeeze. And squeezed it will be. For all the "Reform voters will sit it out", come the election when faced with woke immigrant-loving, knee taking, can't define a woman Labour or the incompetent but comfortingly "on our side" sounding Conservatives they'll hold their noses and vote Tory.
Possible but not certain that the Tories will get Reform voters to switch back. Most of these appear to despise the Conservatives in its current form and don't think it reflects their values.
Reform have under performed opinion polls in all recent elections without obviously benefiting the Conservatives. I suspect self identified Reform supporters may just sit the election out.
Jeremy Hunt will cut national insurance by 2 per cent in the Spring Budget tomorrow
It will cost £10bn and be worth £450 for the average worker. He will sell it as £900 worth of tax cuts when combined with 2 per cent NI cut in Autumn Statement
As per @SamCoatesSky legislation for NI cut will be brought forward next week, enabling it to come into effect in April
Cuts to income tax were deemed too expensive and potentially inflationary
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
For some context, if their actual general election result were to be below 30% of the vote, it would be their worst result in over a century:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7529/ ...The Conservative’s best result in terms of seats won since 1945 was at the 1983 General Election, when 397 MPs were elected. Its highest share of the vote was 49.7% in 1955. At the 1997 General Election, there were 165 Conservative MPs elected and the party received 30.7% of the vote. This was its worst performance in terms of share of the vote and seats won since 1918. In 2019, the Party won 365 seats. This was the most they have held since 1987...
The Tories haven't been above 30% in a poll for almost nine months - and they have a maximum of another seven before the GE must be called.
Unlike 1997 though they have a pretty significant Reform vote to squeeze. And squeezed it will be. For all the "Reform voters will sit it out", come the election when faced with woke immigrant-loving, knee taking, can't define a woman Labour or the incompetent but comfortingly "on our side" sounding Conservatives they'll hold their noses and vote Tory.
Possible but not certain that the Tories will get Reform voters to switch back. Most of these appear to despise the Conservatives in its current form and don't think it reflects their values.
Reform have under performed opinion polls in all recent elections without obviously benefiting the Conservatives. I suspect self identified Reform supporters may just sit the election out.
Yes, I think has been crossed where a sizable chunk are happy to lose, and they'll mark reform for now and at a GE just sit out - people have a sense on what will harm the party they wish to harm, without caring all that much about benefitting a specific other.
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
1978 was when the IPSOS surveys began, yesterday's figure was the lowest the Tories have ever recorded, the quote is misleading in that it implies Tory support was lower in 1978 than it is now which, as you point out, is not the case.
For some context, if their actual general election result were to be below 30% of the vote, it would be their worst result in over a century:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7529/ ...The Conservative’s best result in terms of seats won since 1945 was at the 1983 General Election, when 397 MPs were elected. Its highest share of the vote was 49.7% in 1955. At the 1997 General Election, there were 165 Conservative MPs elected and the party received 30.7% of the vote. This was its worst performance in terms of share of the vote and seats won since 1918. In 2019, the Party won 365 seats. This was the most they have held since 1987...
Worth noting that the 'since 1918' rider makes the same mistake as the 'since 1978' one.
1918 was an unusual election because of the coalition coupons and so the number of constituencies not contested by the Tories. But even so, the Conservatives / Unionists secured over 38% of the vote. You have to go way back to 1832 for a lower Tory share of the vote, and such figures then are not really representative given the number of uncontested seats (though because of the Whig landslide, chances are that the Tory vote share would have been even lower had they been fought).
We can reasonably take 1997 as the worst Conservative share of the vote ever, since elections in the modern sense came about with the reforms of the 1880s (secret ballots, expenses limits and a sizeable electorate - if still a minority one).
Jeremy Hunt will cut national insurance by 2 per cent in the Spring Budget tomorrow
It will cost £10bn and be worth £450 for the average worker. He will sell it as £900 worth of tax cuts when combined with 2 per cent NI cut in Autumn Statement
As per @SamCoatesSky legislation for NI cut will be brought forward next week, enabling it to come into effect in April
Cuts to income tax were deemed too expensive and potentially inflationary
Shows how blooming useless they are as this will cost £9bn - and allowing those on £50,000+ to keep child benefit would be a better vote winner
All of this Excel wanker bullshit is irrelevant. The point it to try to force Labour to go into the election saying they will reverse it. There is nothing more to it than that.
Yet we're continually told that people support higher taxes to pay for public services.
This is really bad coverage by the BBC. They will justify this as being part of the whole, but this is just like conversation in a pub about the fact that life is what it is and we all want a free owl.
The BBC have the resources to discuss expertly what the options really are, and why we are where we are, and shouldn't undermine this with pub talk.
BTW another massive failing is that the BBC forgets, every day and all the time, that balance is not achieved by a discussion of the deaf between two extremes, with no-one present to represent the view that both extremes are wrong and superficial.
It is interesting that no-one here raises an eyebrow at the chap complaining about losing child benefit on £70,000 a year.
If you want specifics, yes, eyebrow raised. It's just pub talk in a posher sort of wine bar.
It is funny. I've mentioned this before with people on over £100,000 salary-sacrificing in order to retain child benefits. Traditionally Conservatives argued for means-testing while giving benefits to the higher-paid was a socialist policy (so that everyone had a stake in the benefits system and would not wind it down).
I think conservatism is slightly less clear than that. Conservatism gives state pensions at great cost regardless of other incomes. More subtly, people,especially wealthier conservative ones, make a mental distinction between 'benefits' (socialist and for the submerged tenth) and tax allowances/reliefs - eg on pension contributions and various savings wheezes, and on CGT and IHT which bring in vastly more than any benefits but under a different name. But it's all money, and there is only one sort of it.
Comments
But at least we can throw the muppets out.
Which is part of the reason why its popularity has followed the trajectory it has.
The ayahuasca ceremony
That fucking fire kept zigzagging around the whole chamber, like it was alive. Also my hands became tungsten with emerald sparkles and I decided on a new motto in life: “that looks weird. Don’t look at it”
Can someone help me out, story says
"Support for the Conservative Party has plunged to the lowest level since 1978" with just a fifth of British voters now backing Rishi Sunak’s party, according to a new poll." but the lowest poll for the Tories in 1978 was 42% ?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1979_United_Kingdom_general_election
For those who have paid off their mortgage and have savings then higher interest rates are a good thing.
As to wages they're dependent upon productivity increases if they're to increase in real terms.
Now productivity is affected by government and employer decisions but workers still need to be looking at how they can improve their own skillsets.
Now he makes our laws for life
https://thecorbynproject.com/
I think he probably feels (rightly IMO) that tragedies that affect vast number of people over decades are actually more important than arguing whether we should have 1p off National Insurance.
I can still imagine his standing for re-election and Galloway endorsing him - you can't be responsible for who supports you. But if he does, it'll be to pursue his international interests, not to bash Labour like Galloway. I don't see him standing for Mayor, for the same reason.
https://www.google.com/maps/@55.9618238,-3.306361,3a,75y,193.96h,77.13t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1smYLJ8mspTAlDItZyRWL6vA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
And if, in desperation to get something, Sunak/Cameron make so many concessions the deal is irresistable, take that. India is in a strong negotiating position with a weak and desperate British PM.
“Why am I yawning constantly”
“Does this moth REALLY like me”
“Make the Spanish speaking centaur go away”
And one thought was actually useful:
Everything is funny. Everything. Even death (however sad or tragic). Maybe death especially. Because it makes a mockery of us all, and all our vanities and projects and reveries. Death is literally laughable
Everything on the side of a bus has been delivered.
In three years time people will be complaining that Starmer hasn't delivered on promises they think he made but didn't.
Dehli are hideously bureaucratic in everything they do and the politics for Modi will be that he's seen to have 'defeated' the former colonial overlords, which will stall it forevermore.
They looked at some data and the earliest point was 1978.
The BBC have the resources to discuss expertly what the options really are, and why we are where we are, and shouldn't undermine this with pub talk.
BTW another massive failing is that the BBC forgets, every day and all the time, that balance is not achieved by a discussion of the deaf between two extremes, with no-one present to represent the view that both extremes are wrong and superficial.
Its perfectly possible to have high earnings and still live beyond your means.
Perhaps, especially so in the USA.
It isn't revealing who has liked a comment when you hover over it.
They need to take a long, hard look at themselves.
Labour's worst is a hell of a lot better than the Tories' best.
OF course, it doesn't really impact them, in their salons and seminars.
The combatants? Filipinos versus Ladyboys. I do not joke. They are already calling it the “katoey wars”
https://x.com/sukhumvit11_/status/1764773970442695051?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Most other Lancashire towns have noted sports teams, food connections or historical events.
Incidentally AI is the talk of the commune. (A highly intellectual affluent temporary commune). I didn’t have to bring it up. One guy I know quite well (Swiss property tycoon) volunteered non-apropos that he’s been having nightmares where Sam Altman is Satan
I accept this will take a while to percolate down to language tutors in Wakefield, but in elite circles it is the obsession de nos jours
Far too many only really 'bother' to understand you if you say 'yes', and then they make you do all the work to qualify yourself.
They're a waste of time and space.
But we've got the 1994 figures in the equivalent of late 1996, when the Tory average was already up to 29-30%.
And today's averages are still declining.
[ETA: looking at the PollBase spreadsheet]
More generally, I don't see how any likely budget will make much difference to the long running absence of any coherent policy to address our deep rooted economic problems.
Whatever is announced will just be fiddling around the margins.
People might reminisce about the full employment of the 2020s as they once did about the full employment of the 1960s.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7529/
...The Conservative’s best result in terms of seats won since 1945 was at the 1983 General Election, when 397 MPs were elected. Its highest share of the vote was 49.7% in 1955.
At the 1997 General Election, there were 165 Conservative MPs elected and the party received 30.7% of the vote. This was its worst performance in terms of share of the vote and seats won since 1918. In 2019, the Party won 365 seats. This was the most they have held since 1987...
This stupid "Labour's worst is a hell of a lot better than the Tories' best" is total bollocks
Red Tory Genocide supporting/ Blue Tory Genocide supporting
Red Tory Blue Tory NHS underinvestment privatisation
Red Tory/Blue Tory austerity
Red Tory / Blue Tory war mongering
Red Tory / Blue Tory authoritarians
Red Tory / Blue Tory benefit claimant haters
Red Tory / Blue Tory immigrant scapegoaters
All same thing.
Its the blind faith of the" Lab is best" idiots that need to take a long, hard look at themselves.
Why will they be any different apart from the tie/ rosette
LOL.
And, when you strip everything away, that's what Brexit is for. That’s why the funders funded it, that’s why the nutters on the right agitated for it, that’s the whole shebang right there.
In Slaughterhouse 5 Vonnegut - and again I paraphrase - says something along the lines of ‘That’s the nice thing about war, everyone gets a little something out of it.’ (IIRC it relates to poor old Edgar Derby being shot for looting after retrieving a teapot from the smouldering remains of Dresden.)
Aaaanyway, that was what got Brexit over the line - in the twin Leave campaigns there was a little bit of something for everybody. Before the referendum I spoke to a left-wing guy who’d retired and had bought a motor-home and spent 9 months a year toddling round the continent and couldn’t wait to vote Leave because it would mean everything could be nationalised, or something. When I pointed out that if we left he probably wouldn't be able to have unfettered access to the EU he simply waived it away. Simply wouldn’t happen that leaving the EU would affect his ability to travel freely and without constraint in the EU.
I haven’t seen him since but I wonder how he enjoys his 90 days max.
And that’s the tale of Brexit - everyone saw what they wanted to see and waived away any drawbacks, believing the guff the Leave campaigns and Johnson told them, dressed up in lovely fluffy terms like sovereignty and control.
And all the lies were packaged attractively to get the country to become more Conservative. To make us more parochial, insular. Dumber. More divided. More unequal. Poorer services. Poorer environmental protections. Poorer everything.
It wasn’t about benefitting the vast majority of people, it was about being able to exploit them. And people are realising this.
Many possible ways it could've gone differently, but the failure of Remain on the economic angle was bizarre and a huge advantage for Leave.
Of course it may suddenly and unexpectedly pause. Or cease. But so far there are no signs of this
And it will always be true that opinions are free but facts are expensive.
This sovereignty feels very hypothetical. Hence the consensus that Brexit was a mistake, I believe.
Sky reporting Gaza ceasefire talks have broken down
When will this ever end ?
Galloway has made it clear that his main enemy is Labour.
Corbyn has always been clear that his main enemy is the Tories.
The idea that, for example, Corbyn would want to participate in defenestrating Angela Rayner is ludicrous.
And it's working again.
Which is so small it should be removed because of the economic damage it creates
Either way, I shake my head.
(Clue - it’s not Jimmy Armfield who was born in nearby Denton).
The problem is, as you know, a truly socialist agenda has only won once in recent times - in 1945 - and that was under unique circumstances. You might argue Corbyn could have won in 2017 and perhaps had the election gone on another week he might have won but with the antipathy in the Parliamentary Party at that time he would not have been able to deliver a full blooded socialist agenda - you know that and I know that.
Indeed, he might well have tried a Mitterrand-style approach from thr early 1980s but that didn't end well.
I'm not a socialist because I don't believe the State should have the power and control - power should truly sit with the people and that means emasculating both Whitehall and Westminster and I'm not convinced socialism is about that.
The other problem is the people Starmer needs to get on his side aren't socialists - they are conservatives - so a broadly conservative message is going to be the one which resonates. Once in office, with his majority, Starmer can do as he sees fit. I expect him to be a social democrat in office which isn't what this country needs but it will paper over the cracks for a decade or so. As with Butskellism in 1979, we can all see the current economic and political model is failing and has failed but we don't have an idea as to with what we should replace it.
Th eone thing we know is the populist "Right" doesn't have any answers. The new BSW Party in Germany might be a route worth following if you want to harnass a populist vote on the "Left" but I'm not convinced they have the answers either.
There are a lot of rubbish films where they've tried to squash a story into a film's running time, the film is still too long and the story is too rushed.
Nothing wrong with some fluff or colour too, but unlike others they can commit to more substantive stuff to be more prominent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrcbH0ge2WE
- No, Corbyn will not defect to Galloway's latest vehicle. He may well, however, contest Islington as either an independent or with his own party. I'd be amazed if he saw any value to himself in accepting Galloway's leadership, and Galloway certainly wouldn't accept anyone else's.
- I agree, Galloway will try to unseat Rayner, and will fail.
- Galloway can describe himself how he likes but no genuine left-winger would align with the right in various guises, from defending the highly socially conservative Tehran regime to being the 'guest star' at Grassroots Out Brexit launch, to being an RT mouthpiece of the outright fascist Kremlin. He may well be left-wing in some respects but he's mainly just anti-West. He doesn't really give a damn about whether Labour or the Tories are in power.
Anyway that is not the point. The interesting thing was he used AI to do his research and write his book and made a big point of it. He said it took him 30 days to write whereas he thinks it would have taken years otherwise and there was a lot of data compilation and manipulation, each one of which took hours instead of a month to do.
In the end though it was him who produced it.
I vaguely recall a letter to The Times when publicity-shy Tony Blair knighted Hurst, complaining this devalued the Honours system as from now on, every Englishman who scored a hat-trick in a World Cup final would expect a knighthood.
I would regard a literal interpretation of the Bible as contradicting the fundamentals of Christian teaching.
Minor parties are often squeezed but not every time - and when it doesn't happen, it's usually because either the voter thinks the tactical vote for the bigger party isn't worth it anyway (why vote Tory if they're still going to lose?), or if they're so angry with both bigger parties, or at least with the one they're closer to, that they care less which of them wins than that they express support for the minor party and/or opposition to the others. Those factors are very much in play this year.
I see everyone's favourite group, local Councils, are facing another round of Conservative stick:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68477450
As for diversity, seriously? Yes, one or two councils go a bit overboard on "diversity" (whatever that means) but most do the bare minimum if that. Even Conservative-run authorities cover equality and diversity as part of staff training for no other reason than to make staff aware their "customers" come, quite literally, in all shapes and sizes and Council services need to reflect that. The Mail might want to whip up hysteria among its frightened elderly leadership by trying to convince billions are "wasted" on Council diversity schemes but it's nonsense.
The use of consultants is a far bigger and more serious issue. There's nothing wrong with getting in expertise to help with specific projects or areas of service but the use of consultants or self-employed contractors as a quick way to fill vacant senior and middle management posts is a growing practice and these staff, brought in on a supposedly interim basis, cost councils a lot as they are generally paid much more than the actual salary for the role.
Given what sparked this and the decades preceding it, that could be some time.
People are hoping to make millions or billions out of this; it is therefore important for them to get the hype train going full-bore. Idiots then fall for the hype. Yes, the tech is good. It is also deeply flawed.
You may remember a similar hype 5-10 years ago about autonomous cars; I wonder if we have any exalted poster who fell for that hype hook, line and sinker?
Reform have under performed opinion polls in all recent elections without obviously benefiting the Conservatives. I suspect self identified Reform supporters may just sit the election out.
Jeremy Hunt will cut national insurance by 2 per cent in the Spring Budget tomorrow
It will cost £10bn and be worth £450 for the average worker. He will sell it as £900 worth of tax cuts when combined with 2 per cent NI cut in Autumn Statement
As per
@SamCoatesSky
legislation for NI cut will be brought forward next week, enabling it to come into effect in April
Cuts to income tax were deemed too expensive and potentially inflationary
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1764961787101823232
Shows how blooming useless they are as this will cost £9bn - and allowing those on £50,000+ to keep child benefit would be a better vote winner
1918 was an unusual election because of the coalition coupons and so the number of constituencies not contested by the Tories. But even so, the Conservatives / Unionists secured over 38% of the vote. You have to go way back to 1832 for a lower Tory share of the vote, and such figures then are not really representative given the number of uncontested seats (though because of the Whig landslide, chances are that the Tory vote share would have been even lower had they been fought).
We can reasonably take 1997 as the worst Conservative share of the vote ever, since elections in the modern sense came about with the reforms of the 1880s (secret ballots, expenses limits and a sizeable electorate - if still a minority one).
Although they have a good Cineworld there.