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The SNP’s sixth sense – politicalbetting.com
The SNP’s sixth sense – politicalbetting.com
The party attracted £75,000 in bequests and donations from individuals and companies since Yousaf took office in March last year
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Icy dead people.
Police Scotland seem to be moving more slowly than the Supreme Court when obliged to rule against Donald Trump.
From last summer
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23664969.police-probe-snp-finances-moved-beyond-initial-complaint/
From before Christmas
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12847831/So-SNP-fraud-cops-looking-purchase-95k-Jaguar.html
It was reported earlier on this year that some people who signed financial documents for the SNP denied putting their signatures on them.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/11868841/police-investigating-fraud-claims-over-snp-financial-documents/
Harry Potter is all true:
"space would be haphazardly warped and time would diverge in different patches of the universe".
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/mar/09/controversial-new-theory-of-gravity-rules-out-need-for-dark-matter
It’s also the lowest combined vote for Refcon at 31% (I can’t see LLG as can’t find Green), very different from the spring 2019 dynamic we were talking about earlier where the combined BXP-Tory vote was still 40%+
https://twitter.com/RobertDownen_/status/1766299904995967468
Police chief who led Stakeknife inquiry condemns MI5 for stalling investigation
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/08/police-chief-stakeknife-inquiry-condemns-mi5-stalling-investigation
Trump with Orban tonight:
“There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orban. He’s fantastic…He’s a non-controversial figure because he says, ‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ and that’s the end of it. Right? He’s the boss. No, he’s a great leader.”
https://twitter.com/VaughnHillyard/status/1766262804858732972
BREAKING: Two serving ministers - @annietrev & @TomTugendhat - have broken cover to urge Rishi Sunak's government to "lead the way" and increase defence spending to at least 2.5% at a time of growing threats. 1/
In a highly unusual intervention, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, a foreign office minister and former defence minister, and Tom Tugendhat, the security minister and an experienced soldier, published an article online that does not appear to have been sanctioned by Downing Street. 2/
👀 Two serving ministers go on record to urge the PM to increase defence spending, in a direct challenge to Sunak over defence record post Budget. Typically govt ministers lobby a PM behind closed doors, rather than publicly. Reflection perhaps of party discipline at moment
When Police Scotland report -
1) They find - not much. Everyone in Scottish politics apart from the SNP goes after them.
2) They find - a lot. The SNP and their supporters go after them.
So no one will be happy. They will make a large number of politicians mad at them, no matter what they do.
The longer the can is kicked down the road, the more years of pension the people on the enquiry can accumulate and more time to be moved to other roles due to the natural process of moving jobs in the service.
Retired, defeated politicians have less friends.
Plus whatever they report will either upset the SNP or their opponents. Quite possibly both. Massively. If you were in the police, would your dream plan be to start a fight with all the politicians?
https://archive.ph/R5ryy#selection-4201.0-4206.0
Not an article the tankies will like.
Joshua was carefully circumventing the ring and as Ngannou switched to southpaw, looking notably to land with left and right hooks, and the Briton pounced with the most powerful of right hands.
Is it possible to circumvent the ring from inside it? Notably? Pounced?
And the denouement?
As the second round played out, two-time heavyweight world champion Joshua looked in complete control, a hook over the top felling Ngannou, up again at eight, with a follow-up right hand knocking Ngannou clean out, before his foe had hit the ground.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/boxing/2024/03/08/anthony-joshua-vs-francis-ngannou-live-undercard-saudi/ (£££)
Awfully sporting of our chap to hit the other fellow while he was standing up.
https://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Accounts/ST0027451
In the last published accounts from August last year they had all of £46K in the bank. Their expenditure exceeded their income by £804K in a year that was not particularly heavy with elections. With this level of contributions that deficit is almost certain to have increased and they will be in the position of having literally no money in the bank in a year where a General Election is expected.
One classic was when the Steven’s team pulled in an Ulster Defence Regiment soldier for collaborating with the UVF. After interrogating him over a few days, blowing his personal security to the PIRA (he and his family had to be moved), an RUC detective pointed out that the UDR guy was a well known, practising Catholic. No UVF man would go anywhere near him….
On an adjacent subject, is it still standard practice for Local Councillors to "tithe" their allowances to their political parties. That is a Councillor who receives £10k would donate £1k.
Which parties?
(I only learnt about this because Chris Davies MEP wrote a piece for LDV back in 2012:
https://www.libdemvoice.org/chris-davies-mep-writes-to-tithe-or-not-to-tithe-27152.html)
Humza will be pleased to know that in these times of austerity he can get a decent 2+2 VW California camper van for just under £75k. The Ocean model seems nice at £74,222.
https://www.volkswagen-vans.co.uk/en/new-vehicles/california.html
But those Ref votes won’t necessarily go to the Tories, certainly not in locals. They’ll either abstain or quite possibly opt for a NOTA vote on Green or Lib Dem, or local independents.
So temporarily I could see REFCON slipping below 30%, before the Tories begin the inevitable 3rd party squeeze of Reform support in the run up to the general and end up on 32-33%.
An oddity that I'm not sure what to do with - advice welcome. I've used the AOL browser for many years (I know it's quite rare now, but a zillion people use the address). Yesterday, I sent a reminder to myself. It didn't arrive, but it's listed in my "Sent email" as having been sent to an entirely unfamiliar address (an apparently legit university charity that I've never heard of, collegetownpta@hotmail.co.uk - trying to address that site triggers a warning that the site does not use authentication and may be an attempt to trick me). Opening the message in "Sent email", it *appears* to have only gone to my own address - not to collegetownpta - but it didn't actually arrive at my address.
Repeating it, it arrived in my own address normally and shows up normally in the "Sent email" list.
Some sort of spoofing seems to be going on, but what? Perhaps some, but not all, of my emails are being diverted to a hacker address, in the hope that I'll reveal something about a bank account etc. What would it be sensible to do, preferably not involving changing my email address? AOL doesn't appear to have any mechanism for reporting the issue.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/68517911
Going for an election in the autumn may be the equivalent of spending your last pound on a lottery ticket, but an almost certain rout later is better than a certain rout now.
And it will be Rishi because enough of the parliamentary party still have enough connection with reality to fear Braverman or Badenoch getting the gig.
It is going to be grimly fascinating watching the centre lose all control of its ministers, though. The 1997 campaign was bad enough, but this looks set to be worse and likely to run for months.
Looping back to the header, how much is Yousaf a Scottish Sunak? Neither really up to the job, but mostly doomed by the timebombs they have been gifted by their charismatic predecessors?
🚨 The HuffPost UK weekend political read on why so many Labour and Tory MPs believe the general election will be on May 2.
One Tory said: "My guess would be Rishi does PMQs on March 20th and then calls the election at 3pm that day.”
https://t.co/VllfQ1yJn0
The suggestion is that Horny tried to engineer a management buyout of the team at a discount price and failed, and those opposed to him have a lot of dirt. There’s two power centres at the company, in Thailand and in Austria, and they’re fighting with each other over control. In shares the Thais have 51% and the Austrians 49%, even though the company was run from Austria for decades. Horny has the support of the Thais for now.
It hasn’t be updated in decades and even when released was considered a bit insecure.
Get a modern browser. Change all your passwords. Everything.
Get a high quality anti-virus product. Scan your machine on the most intensive setting.
If you find anything, change the passwords again. Paranoia is a friend.
Mind you, he was in the SS.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/mar/09/michelle-donelan-case-highlights-perils-for-politicians-who-pick-fights-online
What could they allocate to “defence” that’s actually other stuff?
- International development? Easy, development at the point of a bayonet, Victorian style
- Health and social care? Military hospitals and clinics that happen to be open to the community, army veteran care homes, run for them by local authorities and open to civilians
- Transport: new military railroad to transport tanks and missiles at high speed from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds
- Education: let’s convert half our state schools to military academies
- Government debt? “War bonds”
- Incapacity benefit? Help for heroes
-
In fact, the blizzard of paid for paper more or less ensures the election will be held beyond a date which might force such deliveries to be declared. The Tories might end up forcing themselves into a bind, despite being very well funded
https://help.aol.com/articles/download-or-upgrade-your-web-browser
I maintain we can make better use of these resources.
There’s also Firefox.
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Explorer - problem was bracket at the end
Some will vote conservative but many will stay Reform
Whether their supporters vote Reform, vote Tory, or stay at home, is likely the biggest determinant of how the election goes for Sunak.
Here is the stuff you need to be able to tell new email client tool where to go to get your AOL mail:
https://help.aol.co.uk/articles/how-do-i-use-other-email-applications-to-send-and-receive-my-aol-mail?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALva4-AyvC-5G3mYhwgHErQUbEeI4D7dO-J-tDS8HIQ26kVJm00Fq50MP7a_34B5yYmG65fpMG4Ctu1zDIUh279NiN7HKiRRFMY54c98sqizDTaPx_G4u0wQLS5KGVL0ivbc83MB1ZIXGMAo00KXNn_jJ_alYCyWffPdJSXbk4ke
In the autumn interest rates should be on their way down , the economy might show some growth and net migration is likely to have shown a fall .
Zelensky: Elizaveta Trusskaya also wore a fur hat!
It is unimaginable that Sunak would call an election in May with the polls where they are and when he has consistently said the Autumn and whenever it comes, it will be Sunak leading as nobody else wants the poisoned chalice
My 6 Nations predictions for this weekend:
Italy-Scotland: Italy will be fired up by their result against France and will have been disappointed with their missed kick at the end of the game, and will be trying to go one better today. Scotland will be equally happy with their result against England, although they were lucky to scrape wins against France & Wales. This game could go either way but I am going to go with Italy 13 Scotland 18.
England-Ireland. England will try to steamroller England, but Ireland are simply too good at the moment and l expect them to ride out the early English pressure and then dominate the game. England 12 Ireland 27.
Wales-France. Wales have been steadily improving throughout the tournament, despite not actually winning, and I expect the improvements to continue today. But France will be hurting after last weeks match, and will make things awkward for Wales. This game will be close but think that Wales will finally win a game Wales 21 France 15
Besides, this is their best chance- when there are a lot of people on the right annoyed with a Conservative government. And unlike 2019, it's hard to see how the leadership can be bought off.
Now post Brexit Lincolnshire, Essex, Kent, even Staffordshire and Cambridgeshire have more Conservative controlled district and unitary councils
I don't know which tradition Souter's followed.
That is problematic, because the Christian scripture is not that sort of document, and does not make that claim.
In my view that is a huge part of the problems some Evangelical traditions have coping with contemporary challenges. It's a reductionist / rationalist approach imposed on Christian tradition, that to me suggests that they have laid aside most of the distinctives they should be using as part of their critique of modern society.
I'd almost call it Dawkinsite.
-- at least so she said
They truly seem to live in a bubble where they're hard done by and have no idea how the rest of the population see them.
It's a landslide defeat either way.
Remember those polls about how young people don't believe the Holocaust happend?
Turns out they were duff polling with bad sampling
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/05/online-opt-in-polls-can-produce-misleading-results-especially-for-young-people-and-hispanic-adults/
They know May is their best chance of holding on to their seats
College Town Primary School Parent Teacher Association
Branksome Hill Road, College Town, Sandhurst, GU47 0QF
Registered Charity Number: 1054960
collegetownpta@hotmail.co.uk
https://collegetownpta.org.uk/contact/
The main school website appears to have been designed in the mid-1990s with its primary colours, crude visual effects and comic sans type.
https://www.collegetownprimary.com/pta/
I'd vaguely wonder if your one exploits foreign characters so is not what it seems, but on the other hand it might be your warning is triggered by absence of email security markers that have recently become widespread.
Anyway, ignore my ramblings and do what the others have said: change your browser and all your passwords and set up MFA on all sites. The problem is that if a hacker did have control of your email account, they can use that to change your passwords on other sites.
The idea that the Tories would somehow be on the way to winning with him is for the birds.
Let's say the range of outcomes is 75 - 200 Conservatives in the next Parliament.
75 are safe anyway. About 150 are doomed anyway; they might as well hang on another six months. It's only the ones in the middle band that benefit from an early election.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-08/former-prime-minister-theresa-may-won-t-seek-re-election-as-mp
Which is technically possible, but of course Tory MPs acted because they thought it would get worse, because he was constantly digging himself into problems. A bunch of them regretted that fairly soon, and definitely do now, but it wouldn't have been an easy ride with him even if perhaps they'd be doing a bit better.
The real damage was Truss. Or not even Truss, but her ousting. Things got so bad it's understandable why they did it, but even before Rishi showed he was not up to the job that action torpedoed the party's morale and reputation among waverers.
- Hard graft, a struggle to make ends meet, meaning anyone now comfortable in retirement did so against the odds and through hard work
- A paradise where people greeted each other in the streets, there was no crime, Britain was admired and feared abroad and the trains ran on time
"Alongside easing inflationary pressures, market participants now expect a sharper fall in interest rates than in the autumn. Bank Rate is expected to fall more steeply this year from its current peak of 5.25 per cent to 4.2 per cent in the final quarter of 2024. "
https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-march-2024/#:~:text=1.5 Alongside easing inflationary pressures,the final quarter of 2024.
https://msrc.microsoft.com/blog/2024/03/update-on-microsoft-actions-following-attack-by-nation-state-actor-midnight-blizzard/
Nothing wrong with a bit of fiery rhetoric or biting comment at times, but good politicians pick the moment and can do dignity or seriousness when they want to, they mould to the situation, whereas too often now they are just all crazy all the time, or, and I think for senior ministers like Donelan this is likely, switch between anonymous and hiding from scrutiny, robotically parroting bland lines, and lame attempts at cultural interventions.