The Tories are taking the line that saying you hate a black woman is not racist.
As I’ve been saying for a long while, it is obvious the Tories have an issue with racism.
The Tory line to take on the morning round is that their £10m donor who said Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women was not being racist and they’d like to keep the £10m
Sir Norfolk Passmore thinks that tweet makes him want to hate anyone referring to themselves in the third person.
TBF, he was just posting what his lawyers drafted for him.
And as I pointed out yesterday his lawyers are Carter Ruck - that tells you absolutely everything you need to know about him.
I suppose they must occasionally represent people who aren't shits?
My viewpoint on Carter Ruck is that only shits would use them - for they are both expensive, crap and love to send letters that bear very little relation to what will occur when you treat the letter with the respect it deserved...
Using Carter Ruck is the equivalent of throwing a Nuclear Bomb into a domestic argument about the colour of new wallpaper..
That story about Frank Hestor's comments re Diane Abbot is a shocker and I suspect may cause some issues at Tory HQ (a £10million donation complicates matters).... I cant see any party wanting to refund that sort of money. It also brings the nasty party image to the fore yet again, I suspect Reform will be more than happy to take his money
It is a very nasty statement. Personally I like Diane Abbott a lot more than a lot of right wingers, probably because I never particularly seek her statements out to view, and I have fond memories of being a fan of her on This Week. But even if you are incensed by someone, which we can all be, what he's said is despicable. It should be too despicable for any mainstream party to accept a donation from him without a full apology to Abbott and to the general public, followed by a tasteful delay before resuming donations.
The Tories are taking the line that saying you hate a black woman is not racist.
As I’ve been saying for a long while, it is obvious the Tories have an issue with racism.
The Tory line to take on the morning round is that their £10m donor who said Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women was not being racist and they’d like to keep the £10m
"Unless the PM calls an election by next Friday, there will be more than one Reform UK MP in the House of Commons."
Leader of Reform UK Richard Tice says that the Tory Party has become full of "con socialists".
I'm at a loss as to what is socialist about this Government apart from giving Pensioners more money (and that's because the state pension is tiny and needs to be fixed).
Tice is clearly trying to sully socialism's good name. This government is most definitely not socialist.
I see Number 10 is going to do its usual routine of making as many ministers on the broadcast round defend the indefensible before it inevitably throws them under the bus.
Mate, it was half a decade ago. Ancient history! Five whole years and 3 prime ministers old.
So the pathological liar who would have been suspended from parliament for 90 days is going to be their vote winner !
It will win back some votes in some places. Possibly even a net gain overall.
Though it could all just be a "don't follow Lee to Reform, Daddy still loves you and he is coming back" piece of waffle.
The nearest we have to confirmation is
A spokesman for Johnson said: “Boris Johnson’s focus at the moment is writing and speaking and he is very productively engaged on that. His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life and that will remain so.”
Which is only a bit of a fib.
Yesterday I had drinks/dinner with some pollsters and political strategist and this topic came up, in short whilst Johnson is more popular with 2019 Tories/Red Wallers than Sunak those ratings are still pretty shite, it is like being the prettiest horse at the glue factory.
On average he is hitting around 40% approval/support with 2019 Tories, by comparison at this point in late 2014 David Cameron was hitting 90% plus approval with 2010 Tories.
Whilst Johnson has a higher floor he also drives up ABC tactical voting in a way Sunak doesn't.
So under the vagaries of FPTP it is entirely possible that the Tories get a worse result with Johnson leading them to 31% of the vote than Sunak who leads them to 27% of the vote.
So will he be a net benefit in the so called red wall or not then ?
I would guess the Tories are so desperate for something any roll of the dice is worth a go.
In terms of votes he may well be a net benefit but in terms of net seats definite net loss.
I can't see him campaigning in the frozen North out of altruism. Presumably he gets himself a zero hours contract at for example the comparable Carter-Ruck hourly rate.
Presumably the giant inflatable Bozo, last seen in Hartlepool, can be brought out of storage and paraded through the streets of Northern towns to remind us all of the great man. While he can stay at home writing his weekly dose of bollocks.
So the pathological liar who would have been suspended from parliament for 90 days is going to be their vote winner !
It will win back some votes in some places. Possibly even a net gain overall.
Though it could all just be a "don't follow Lee to Reform, Daddy still loves you and he is coming back" piece of waffle.
The nearest we have to confirmation is
A spokesman for Johnson said: “Boris Johnson’s focus at the moment is writing and speaking and he is very productively engaged on that. His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life and that will remain so.”
Which is only a bit of a fib.
Yesterday I had drinks/dinner with some pollsters and political strategist and this topic came up, in short whilst Johnson is more popular with 2019 Tories/Red Wallers than Sunak those ratings are still pretty shite, it is like being the prettiest horse at the glue factory.
On average he is hitting around 40% approval/support with 2019 Tories, by comparison at this point in late 2014 David Cameron was hitting 90% plus approval with 2010 Tories.
Whilst Johnson has a higher floor he also drives up ABC tactical voting in a way Sunak doesn't.
So under the vagaries of FPTP it is entirely possible that the Tories get a worse result with Johnson leading them to 31% of the vote than Sunak who leads them to 27% of the vote.
So will he be a net benefit in the so called red wall or not then ?
I would guess the Tories are so desperate for something any roll of the dice is worth a go.
In terms of votes he may well be a net benefit but in terms of net seats definite net loss.
I can't see him campaigning in the frozen North out of altruism. Presumably he gets himself a zero hours contract at for example the comparable Carter-Ruck hourly rate.
Expenses plus lots of material for incisive and witty articles by the finest prose writer in the English language: win win (not for the Tories obvs).
In my spam folder this morning some channel convergence news that will make Topping jump for joy. Nespresso are opening a coffee bar in London where you can drink real capsule coffee, live, in cardboard cups with lids.
Mrs. Thatcher was deployed to do a bit of campaigning for Major when the 97 election was going south I think. Obviously doesn’t help, just reminds people what they're not getting. If anything it will undermine Johnson's popularity rather than enhance Sunak's.
So the pathological liar who would have been suspended from parliament for 90 days is going to be their vote winner !
It will win back some votes in some places. Possibly even a net gain overall.
Though it could all just be a "don't follow Lee to Reform, Daddy still loves you and he is coming back" piece of waffle.
The nearest we have to confirmation is
A spokesman for Johnson said: “Boris Johnson’s focus at the moment is writing and speaking and he is very productively engaged on that. His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life and that will remain so.”
Which is only a bit of a fib.
Yesterday I had drinks/dinner with some pollsters and political strategist and this topic came up, in short whilst Johnson is more popular with 2019 Tories/Red Wallers than Sunak those ratings are still pretty shite, it is like being the prettiest horse at the glue factory.
On average he is hitting around 40% approval/support with 2019 Tories, by comparison at this point in late 2014 David Cameron was hitting 90% plus approval with 2010 Tories.
Whilst Johnson has a higher floor he also drives up ABC tactical voting in a way Sunak doesn't.
So under the vagaries of FPTP it is entirely possible that the Tories get a worse result with Johnson leading them to 31% of the vote than Sunak who leads them to 27% of the vote.
So will he be a net benefit in the so called red wall or not then ?
I would guess the Tories are so desperate for something any roll of the dice is worth a go.
In terms of votes he may well be a net benefit but in terms of net seats definite net loss.
I can't see him campaigning in the frozen North out of altruism. Presumably he gets himself a zero hours contract at for example the comparable Carter-Ruck hourly rate.
Expenses plus lots of material for incisive and witty articles by the finest prose writer in the English language: win win (not for the Tories obvs).
"His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life"
Erm. Apart from when he stood for the SDP at Oxford.
The Tories are taking the line that saying you hate a black woman is not racist.
As I’ve been saying for a long while, it is obvious the Tories have an issue with racism.
The Tory line to take on the morning round is that their £10m donor who said Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women was not being racist and they’d like to keep the £10m
The Tories are taking the line that saying you hate a black woman is not racist.
As I’ve been saying for a long while, it is obvious the Tories have an issue with racism.
The Tory line to take on the morning round is that their £10m donor who said Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women was not being racist and they’d like to keep the £10m
Sir Norfolk Passmore thinks that tweet makes him want to hate anyone referring to themselves in the third person.
Theuniondivvie is in violent agreement.
#thirdpersonwanker
His comms team should have learned from the masters and put the issue to bed properly, in the first person.
"Like many Tory donors, I do occasionally experiment with racism. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the sentiments I shared *half a decade ago* caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother's day. F"
So the pathological liar who would have been suspended from parliament for 90 days is going to be their vote winner !
It will win back some votes in some places. Possibly even a net gain overall.
Though it could all just be a "don't follow Lee to Reform, Daddy still loves you and he is coming back" piece of waffle.
The nearest we have to confirmation is
A spokesman for Johnson said: “Boris Johnson’s focus at the moment is writing and speaking and he is very productively engaged on that. His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life and that will remain so.”
Which is only a bit of a fib.
Yesterday I had drinks/dinner with some pollsters and political strategists and this topic came up, in short whilst Johnson is more popular with 2019 Tories/Red Wallers than Sunak those ratings are still pretty shite, it is like being the prettiest horse at the glue factory.
On average he is hitting around 40% approval/support with 2019 Tories, by comparison at this point in late 2014 David Cameron was hitting 90% plus approval with 2010 Tories.
Whilst Johnson has a higher floor he also drives up ABC tactical voting in a way Sunak doesn't.
So under the vagaries of FPTP it is entirely possible that the Tories get a worse result with Johnson leading them to 31% of the vote than Sunak who leads them to 27% of the vote.
Yep. I'm probably not going to vote Labour tactically, but if Johnson somehow emerged to lead the Tory campaign, I probably would.
So the pathological liar who would have been suspended from parliament for 90 days is going to be their vote winner !
It will win back some votes in some places. Possibly even a net gain overall.
Though it could all just be a "don't follow Lee to Reform, Daddy still loves you and he is coming back" piece of waffle.
The nearest we have to confirmation is
A spokesman for Johnson said: “Boris Johnson’s focus at the moment is writing and speaking and he is very productively engaged on that. His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life and that will remain so.”
Which is only a bit of a fib.
Yesterday I had drinks/dinner with some pollsters and political strategists and this topic came up, in short whilst Johnson is more popular with 2019 Tories/Red Wallers than Sunak those ratings are still pretty shite, it is like being the prettiest horse at the glue factory.
On average he is hitting around 40% approval/support with 2019 Tories, by comparison at this point in late 2014 David Cameron was hitting 90% plus approval with 2010 Tories.
Whilst Johnson has a higher floor he also drives up ABC tactical voting in a way Sunak doesn't.
So under the vagaries of FPTP it is entirely possible that the Tories get a worse result with Johnson leading them to 31% of the vote than Sunak who leads them to 27% of the vote.
Yep. I'm probably not going to vote Labour tactically, but if Johnson somehow emerged to lead the Tory campaign, I probably would.
I suspect those sorts of effects are very much at the margins though. It really feels like this coming election - for all parties - is less about the leadership and more about the party (though not necessarily the actual policy programme) than any in recent history. The apparently pervasive anti-Tory sentiment is anti-Tory, not anti-Sunak or for that matter anti-Boris / Truss. Nor is it pro-Keir or pro-Davey or pro-whoever-leads-the-greens.
2010 was about the personalities: Dave, Gordon and Nick. 2015 was very much Dave vs Ed, with the approval ratings outperforming the polls. 2017 was about Brexit. 2019 was about Brexit and Boris vs Jeremy. This one isn't like that.
That story about Frank Hestor's comments re Diane Abbot is a shocker and I suspect may cause some issues at Tory HQ (a £10million donation complicates matters).... I cant see any party wanting to refund that sort of money. It also brings the nasty party image to the fore yet again, I suspect Reform will be more than happy to take his money
It is a very nasty statement. Personally I like Diane Abbott a lot more than a lot of right wingers, probably because I never particularly seek her statements out to view, and I have fond memories of being a fan of her on This Week. But even if you are incensed by someone, which we can all be, what he's said is despicable. It should be too despicable for any mainstream party to accept a donation from him without a full apology to Abbott and to the general public, followed by a tasteful delay before resuming donations.
If the Tories return the donation he could do himself a big favour by agreeing ten charities with Diane Abbott to give a million each to so at least some good can come from it all instead of the money just going back in his account.
So the pathological liar who would have been suspended from parliament for 90 days is going to be their vote winner !
It will win back some votes in some places. Possibly even a net gain overall.
Though it could all just be a "don't follow Lee to Reform, Daddy still loves you and he is coming back" piece of waffle.
The nearest we have to confirmation is
A spokesman for Johnson said: “Boris Johnson’s focus at the moment is writing and speaking and he is very productively engaged on that. His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life and that will remain so.”
Which is only a bit of a fib.
Yesterday I had drinks/dinner with some pollsters and political strategists and this topic came up, in short whilst Johnson is more popular with 2019 Tories/Red Wallers than Sunak those ratings are still pretty shite, it is like being the prettiest horse at the glue factory.
On average he is hitting around 40% approval/support with 2019 Tories, by comparison at this point in late 2014 David Cameron was hitting 90% plus approval with 2010 Tories.
Whilst Johnson has a higher floor he also drives up ABC tactical voting in a way Sunak doesn't.
So under the vagaries of FPTP it is entirely possible that the Tories get a worse result with Johnson leading them to 31% of the vote than Sunak who leads them to 27% of the vote.
Yep. I'm probably not going to vote Labour tactically, but if Johnson somehow emerged to lead the Tory campaign, I probably would.
I suspect those sorts of effects are very much at the margins though. It really feels like this coming election - for all parties - is less about the leadership and more about the party (though not necessarily the actual policy programme) than any in recent history. The apparently pervasive anti-Tory sentiment is anti-Tory, not anti-Sunak or for that matter anti-Boris / Truss. Nor is it pro-Keir or pro-Davey or pro-whoever-leads-the-greens.
True - what you're really saying is that the determination to get rid of the Tories is already at close to max. Whether that sticks through to the election is, of course, not entirely decided (if looking very likely).
But if Johnson re-emerged to give it a second shot, a lot of people would be fired up to stop him.
The Tories are taking the line that saying you hate a black woman is not racist.
As I’ve been saying for a long while, it is obvious the Tories have an issue with racism.
The Tory line to take on the morning round is that their £10m donor who said Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women was not being racist and they’d like to keep the £10m
Sir Norfolk Passmore thinks that tweet makes him want to hate anyone referring to themselves in the third person.
Theuniondivvie is in violent agreement.
#thirdpersonwanker
His comms team should have learned from the masters and put the issue to bed properly, in the first person.
"Like many Tory donors, I do occasionally experiment with racism. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the sentiments I shared *half a decade ago* caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother's day. F"
Though they have in common that Hester refuses to state what his ‘rude’ comment was and Middleton hasn’t released the original charmingly natural yet ill-composed image.
So the pathological liar who would have been suspended from parliament for 90 days is going to be their vote winner !
It will win back some votes in some places. Possibly even a net gain overall.
Though it could all just be a "don't follow Lee to Reform, Daddy still loves you and he is coming back" piece of waffle.
The nearest we have to confirmation is
A spokesman for Johnson said: “Boris Johnson’s focus at the moment is writing and speaking and he is very productively engaged on that. His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life and that will remain so.”
Which is only a bit of a fib.
Yesterday I had drinks/dinner with some pollsters and political strategists and this topic came up, in short whilst Johnson is more popular with 2019 Tories/Red Wallers than Sunak those ratings are still pretty shite, it is like being the prettiest horse at the glue factory.
On average he is hitting around 40% approval/support with 2019 Tories, by comparison at this point in late 2014 David Cameron was hitting 90% plus approval with 2010 Tories.
Whilst Johnson has a higher floor he also drives up ABC tactical voting in a way Sunak doesn't.
So under the vagaries of FPTP it is entirely possible that the Tories get a worse result with Johnson leading them to 31% of the vote than Sunak who leads them to 27% of the vote.
Yep. I'm probably not going to vote Labour tactically, but if Johnson somehow emerged to lead the Tory campaign, I probably would.
I suspect those sorts of effects are very much at the margins though. It really feels like this coming election - for all parties - is less about the leadership and more about the party (though not necessarily the actual policy programme) than any in recent history. The apparently pervasive anti-Tory sentiment is anti-Tory, not anti-Sunak or for that matter anti-Boris / Truss. Nor is it pro-Keir or pro-Davey or pro-whoever-leads-the-greens.
For the floating voters I think it is a little bit of anti-Sunak, a little bit of anti-Johnson a little bit of anti-Truss and a little bit of anti-May which adds up to a strong anti-Tory sentiment.
Yes, I think Casino posted it a couple of days back. It's also a demonstration that a lot of congressional staffers are dumb as rocks.
Mmm, but also I think a demonstration that the technical rules of procedure are usually less important in practice than the political dynamics and relationships. The rules are mostly obscure because they almost always don't matter.
The Tories are taking the line that saying you hate a black woman is not racist.
As I’ve been saying for a long while, it is obvious the Tories have an issue with racism.
The Tory line to take on the morning round is that their £10m donor who said Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women was not being racist and they’d like to keep the £10m
Will Labour return the whip to Diane Abbott, unjustly suspended.
Or is their anger about this confected and synthetic and they don't really give a damn about her ?
I don't think they have to give a damn about Diane Abbott to understand that a) what was reportedly said is absolutely inexcusable and b) it is somewhat wider in scope than that one individual.
The fact that the Tory spokespeople are out on the media milk round trying to defend it as basically "a confection that is now so old as to be irrelevant" suggests that they maybe haven't heard what everyone else has heard.
The Tories are taking the line that saying you hate a black woman is not racist.
As I’ve been saying for a long while, it is obvious the Tories have an issue with racism.
The Tory line to take on the morning round is that their £10m donor who said Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women was not being racist and they’d like to keep the £10m
So the pathological liar who would have been suspended from parliament for 90 days is going to be their vote winner !
It will win back some votes in some places. Possibly even a net gain overall.
Though it could all just be a "don't follow Lee to Reform, Daddy still loves you and he is coming back" piece of waffle.
The nearest we have to confirmation is
A spokesman for Johnson said: “Boris Johnson’s focus at the moment is writing and speaking and he is very productively engaged on that. His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life and that will remain so.”
Which is only a bit of a fib.
Yesterday I had drinks/dinner with some pollsters and political strategists and this topic came up, in short whilst Johnson is more popular with 2019 Tories/Red Wallers than Sunak those ratings are still pretty shite, it is like being the prettiest horse at the glue factory.
On average he is hitting around 40% approval/support with 2019 Tories, by comparison at this point in late 2014 David Cameron was hitting 90% plus approval with 2010 Tories.
Whilst Johnson has a higher floor he also drives up ABC tactical voting in a way Sunak doesn't.
So under the vagaries of FPTP it is entirely possible that the Tories get a worse result with Johnson leading them to 31% of the vote than Sunak who leads them to 27% of the vote.
Yep. I'm probably not going to vote Labour tactically, but if Johnson somehow emerged to lead the Tory campaign, I probably would.
I suspect those sorts of effects are very much at the margins though. It really feels like this coming election - for all parties - is less about the leadership and more about the party (though not necessarily the actual policy programme) than any in recent history. The apparently pervasive anti-Tory sentiment is anti-Tory, not anti-Sunak or for that matter anti-Boris / Truss. Nor is it pro-Keir or pro-Davey or pro-whoever-leads-the-greens.
For the floating voters I think it is a little bit of anti-Sunak, a little bit of anti-Johnson a little bit of anti-Truss and a little bit of anti-May which adds up to a strong anti-Tory sentiment.
Plus the fact that "inertia" has done that thing where the default flips from "oh, just let them have another go" to "oh, just let the other lot have a go".
So the pathological liar who would have been suspended from parliament for 90 days is going to be their vote winner !
It will win back some votes in some places. Possibly even a net gain overall.
Though it could all just be a "don't follow Lee to Reform, Daddy still loves you and he is coming back" piece of waffle.
The nearest we have to confirmation is
A spokesman for Johnson said: “Boris Johnson’s focus at the moment is writing and speaking and he is very productively engaged on that. His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life and that will remain so.”
Which is only a bit of a fib.
Yesterday I had drinks/dinner with some pollsters and political strategist and this topic came up, in short whilst Johnson is more popular with 2019 Tories/Red Wallers than Sunak those ratings are still pretty shite, it is like being the prettiest horse at the glue factory.
On average he is hitting around 40% approval/support with 2019 Tories, by comparison at this point in late 2014 David Cameron was hitting 90% plus approval with 2010 Tories.
Whilst Johnson has a higher floor he also drives up ABC tactical voting in a way Sunak doesn't.
So under the vagaries of FPTP it is entirely possible that the Tories get a worse result with Johnson leading them to 31% of the vote than Sunak who leads them to 27% of the vote.
So will he be a net benefit in the so called red wall or not then ?
I would guess the Tories are so desperate for something any roll of the dice is worth a go.
In terms of votes he may well be a net benefit but in terms of net seats definite net loss.
I can't see him campaigning in the frozen North out of altruism. Presumably he gets himself a zero hours contract at for example the comparable Carter-Ruck hourly rate.
Expenses plus lots of material for incisive and witty articles by the finest prose writer in the English language: win win (not for the Tories obvs).
"His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life"
Erm. Apart from when he stood for the SDP at Oxford.
"My position has consistently been in support of Boris Johnson my entire political life. Although on occasion I have fucked it a bit."
Yes, I think Casino posted it a couple of days back. It's also a demonstration that a lot of congressional staffers are dumb as rocks.
Mmm, but also I think a demonstration that the technical rules of procedure are usually less important in practice than the political dynamics and relationships. The rules are mostly obscure because they almost always don't matter.
The Tories are taking the line that saying you hate a black woman is not racist.
As I’ve been saying for a long while, it is obvious the Tories have an issue with racism.
The Tory line to take on the morning round is that their £10m donor who said Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women was not being racist and they’d like to keep the £10m
I was liking the bit in the article where he/reps put forward the argument that he's not racist because he once did something nice for non-white people. Racists seem to have great faith in this line of argument (see also 'some of my best friends are...'). But it's like saying Jimmy Savile wasn't a child molester because he did some nice things for some children.
So the pathological liar who would have been suspended from parliament for 90 days is going to be their vote winner !
It will win back some votes in some places. Possibly even a net gain overall.
Though it could all just be a "don't follow Lee to Reform, Daddy still loves you and he is coming back" piece of waffle.
The nearest we have to confirmation is
A spokesman for Johnson said: “Boris Johnson’s focus at the moment is writing and speaking and he is very productively engaged on that. His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life and that will remain so.”
Which is only a bit of a fib.
Yesterday I had drinks/dinner with some pollsters and political strategists and this topic came up, in short whilst Johnson is more popular with 2019 Tories/Red Wallers than Sunak those ratings are still pretty shite, it is like being the prettiest horse at the glue factory.
On average he is hitting around 40% approval/support with 2019 Tories, by comparison at this point in late 2014 David Cameron was hitting 90% plus approval with 2010 Tories.
Whilst Johnson has a higher floor he also drives up ABC tactical voting in a way Sunak doesn't.
So under the vagaries of FPTP it is entirely possible that the Tories get a worse result with Johnson leading them to 31% of the vote than Sunak who leads them to 27% of the vote.
Yep. I'm probably not going to vote Labour tactically, but if Johnson somehow emerged to lead the Tory campaign, I probably would.
I suspect those sorts of effects are very much at the margins though. It really feels like this coming election - for all parties - is less about the leadership and more about the party (though not necessarily the actual policy programme) than any in recent history. The apparently pervasive anti-Tory sentiment is anti-Tory, not anti-Sunak or for that matter anti-Boris / Truss. Nor is it pro-Keir or pro-Davey or pro-whoever-leads-the-greens.
For the floating voters I think it is a little bit of anti-Sunak, a little bit of anti-Johnson a little bit of anti-Truss and a little bit of anti-May which adds up to a strong anti-Tory sentiment.
Plus the fact that "inertia" has done that thing where the default flips from "oh, just let them have another go" to "oh, just let the other lot have a go".
Notable also that the reaction to the prospect of a general election has flipped from Brenda from Bristol "oh not again", to "get on with it".
KWTV reported Monday that Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, the key architect of the conservative border policy that could have passed the House and Senate, appeared to agree with Biden about details in the plan.
During the speech, Biden said, "That bipartisan deal would hire 1,500 more border security agents and officers, 100 more immigration judges to help tackle a backload of 2 million cases, 4,300 more asylum officers and new policies so they can resolve cases in 6 months instead of 6 years."
Biden also said there would be, "100 more high-tech drug detection machines to significantly increase the ability to screen and stop vehicles from smuggling fentanyl into America. This bill would save lives and bring order to the border. It would also give me as President new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the number of migrants at the border is overwhelming.
"The Border Patrol Union endorsed the bill. The Chamber of Commerce endorsed the bill. I believe that given the opportunity, a majority of the House and Senate would endorse it as well."
The crowd of Republicans booed the bill — while Lankford was seen on camera agreeing and mouthing "It's true."..
Can someone ask MoonRabbit if there's any news from No 10 yet about the 10:30 press conference announcing the GE?
Unfortunately the podium is away being polished so no announcements can be made.
[Let's see if this post ages well... If anything can precipitate an election it is surely someone asserting that it won't happen, on an internet forum.]
Personally not a fan of Diane Abbott, mainly for her hypocrisy around schooling her kids (privately - natch), and her comments about black mothers that would definitely be considered racist if a white woman said it about white mothers. But she has suffered appalling abuse over the years, mainly for being a black woman (and that's aside of having had to have sex with Jeremy Corbyn), and no-one should have to have that simply because they are a public figure. I do wonder where this story came from. Who dragged it up and why?
More broadly of coarse many Tories are racist. They are often a bit like my 85 year old father, an ex policeman of 30 years service and a Grenadier Guardsman before that. They were born into different times, and have not had the upbringing of a twenty year old now. They often retain tropes that shock the younger generation. They make jokes about the Irish, and talk about wacky baccy.
At the same time Labour has its share of issues, as many of its supporters try to tread the line of deploring the actions of Israel whilst not deploring the existence of Israel, and definitely not hating Jews, no sir, no Jew hatred here.
FPTP leads to fewer larger parties and they tend to be broad coalitions. You get all sorts. If this idiot apologises it won't be enough for those who hate the Tories. If they give the money back it still won't be enough.
Personally not a fan of Diane Abbott, mainly for her hypocrisy around schooling her kids (privately - natch), and her comments about black mothers that would definitely be considered racist if a white woman said it about white mothers. But she has suffered appalling abuse over the years, mainly for being a black woman (and that's aside of having had to have sex with Jeremy Corbyn), and no-one should have to have that simply because they are a public figure. I do wonder where this story came from. Who dragged it up and why?
More broadly of coarse many Tories are racist. They are often a bit like my 85 year old father, an ex policeman of 30 years service and a Grenadier Guardsman before that. They were born into different times, and have not had the upbringing of a twenty year old now. They often retain tropes that shock the younger generation. They make jokes about the Irish, and talk about wacky baccy.
At the same time Labour has its share of issues, as many of its supporters try to tread the line of deploring the actions of Israel whilst not deploring the existence of Israel, and definitely not hating Jews, no sir, no Jew hatred here.
FPTP leads to fewer larger parties and they tend to be broad coalitions. You get all sorts. If this idiot apologises it won't be enough for those who hate the Tories. If they give the money back it still won't be enough.
When it comes to abuse, the evidence is that other MPs get far more abuse than Abbott. Thanks to a rather (ahem) interesting Guardian article and headline, the opposite has become commonly felt.
No abuse should be acceptable, but I do wonder why abuse against male and/or Conservative and/or white MPs does not get the same anger and sentiment as Abbott's does.
I love this country. My family and I owe it so much. The time has now come for us all to stand together to combat the forces of division and beat this poison. We must face down the extremists who would tear us apart. There must be leadership, not pandering or appeasement.... a country of kind, decent, tolerant people.
Conservative donor: "I think Diane Abbott should be shot"
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
"Unless the PM calls an election by next Friday, there will be more than one Reform UK MP in the House of Commons."
Leader of Reform UK Richard Tice says that the Tory Party has become full of "con socialists".
If a currently Conservative MP considers themself more aligned with Reform UK, why should the calling of an election change that? If you're going to defect, defect. Why fight an election as a Conservative? If anything, calling an election should spur more people to switch party, not fewer.
"Unless the PM calls an election by next Friday, there will be more than one Reform UK MP in the House of Commons."
Leader of Reform UK Richard Tice says that the Tory Party has become full of "con socialists".
I'm at a loss as to what is socialist about this Government apart from giving Pensioners more money (and that's because the state pension is tiny and needs to be fixed).
Well, running a massive deficit, for one. But by all accounts Reform want even more unfunded tax cuts.
I love this country. My family and I owe it so much. The time has now come for us all to stand together to combat the forces of division and beat this poison. We must face down the extremists who would tear us apart. There must be leadership, not pandering or appeasement.... a country of kind, decent, tolerant people.
Conservative donor: "I think Diane Abbott should be shot"
Nice juxtaposition. Do you really think he wants her to be shot, or is it just bullshit being spouted off? I think the ref who denied the Scotland Rugby team the win against France should be shot, mainly to encourage the others.*
*Obviously not really, although it would have been hilarious if Scotland had won that game (which they basically did) and beaten Ireland only to miss out of the 6 nations title by losing to Italy...
That story about Frank Hestor's comments re Diane Abbot is a shocker and I suspect may cause some issues at Tory HQ (a £10million donation complicates matters).... I cant see any party wanting to refund that sort of money. It also brings the nasty party image to the fore yet again, I suspect Reform will be more than happy to take his money
All this arises out of the fact that the Tory party now is in a state where most people who have the cash would say a donation to them both does reputational damage to them and also has the downside of backing a loser. So it follows that quite a bit of the cash comes from a small segment of potential donors. The SNP are suffering in the same way. £10m would be much better spent on the ENO, the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra or provincial theatre.
If UK politics were looking for a better model the only one available is a slow but planned return to mass membership of political parties, something that was normal in the post war world and certainly into the 1960s.
Now, if someone is a party member instinct asks three questions: Are you somehow on the payroll; are you an oddity; how is this going to help your ambitions?
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
Cyclefree, much as I love her input to this forum, goes big on the number of women killed by men each year, but fails to mention the fair higher number of men killed by men.
Global sea surface temperatures, aside from being at a modern-era record high of 21.21°C for the third consecutive day, are also in crazy-town territory for the standard deviation, yesterday at 5.68σ above the 1982-2011 mean. That's 1-in-150 million for a normal distribution. https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1766886096577957960
I suppose that the crazy temperatures over the past year are being driven by the ENSO?
Perhaps the scariest effect of the current situation is that it sets a high water mark that won't be reached again until the next El Nino year - you can almost hear the denialists cueing up their "but sea surface temperatures are much cooler than they were during 2023-24! what are you worrying about?" tweets which they'll be bombarding us with for the rest of the decade...
In a fortnight the sea temperature will have been at a record for every day of the last year.
Reverting the ban on high sulfur fuel oils would probably help in the short term. Downside is the extra couple of 100k deaths from air pollution.
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
I love this country. My family and I owe it so much. The time has now come for us all to stand together to combat the forces of division and beat this poison. We must face down the extremists who would tear us apart. There must be leadership, not pandering or appeasement.... a country of kind, decent, tolerant people.
Conservative donor: "I think Diane Abbott should be shot"
Nice juxtaposition. Do you really think he wants her to be shot, or is it just bullshit being spouted off? I think the ref who denied the Scotland Rugby team the win against France should be shot, mainly to encourage the others.*
*Obviously not really, although it would have been hilarious if Scotland had won that game (which they basically did) and beaten Ireland only to miss out of the 6 nations title by losing to Italy...
I love this country. My family and I owe it so much. The time has now come for us all to stand together to combat the forces of division and beat this poison. We must face down the extremists who would tear us apart. There must be leadership, not pandering or appeasement.... a country of kind, decent, tolerant people.
Conservative donor: "I think Diane Abbott should be shot"
Nice juxtaposition. Do you really think he wants her to be shot, or is it just bullshit being spouted off? I think the ref who denied the Scotland Rugby team the win against France should be shot, mainly to encourage the others.*
*Obviously not really, although it would have been hilarious if Scotland had won that game (which they basically did) and beaten Ireland only to miss out of the 6 nations title by losing to Italy...
It's grade one racism.
Is grade one racism milder or stronger than grade five racism? How is the reader supposed to know, have I missed something?
Oh dear, FAFO leaps to mind. Former rapper launches a legal action against her employer. Loses. Takes the hump when they pursue her for the costs they incurred.
"Unless the PM calls an election by next Friday, there will be more than one Reform UK MP in the House of Commons."
Leader of Reform UK Richard Tice says that the Tory Party has become full of "con socialists".
I'm at a loss as to what is socialist about this Government apart from giving Pensioners more money (and that's because the state pension is tiny and needs to be fixed).
Well, running a massive deficit, for one. But by all accounts Reform want even more unfunded tax cuts.
For the angry of the right a con socialist is someone who spends money and cuts taxes on 'people like them' instead of 'people like us'.
For the angry of the left a lab tory is someone who spends money and cuts taxes of 'people like them' instead of 'people like us'.
The Tories are taking the line that saying you hate a black woman is not racist.
As I’ve been saying for a long while, it is obvious the Tories have an issue with racism.
The Tory line to take on the morning round is that their £10m donor who said Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women was not being racist and they’d like to keep the £10m
It’s far, far more worse than ‘rude’! Very, very nasty indeed.
However, good morning, one and all.
He's a racist, no if ands or buts.
He may also have done plenty of nice things in his time including treating people of other races OK, I don't know the man and racists are not awful 100% of the time. But what he said was still unequivocally, proudly racist whether it was a one off or a pattern
The Tories are having difficulty here because to deny it requires arguing black is white.
It's bad. That said, it's not as racist as the things one or two regulars on PB say!
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
No group more likely to be a victim of crime than young black men.
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
Being healthy is an important part of my life. I think it's an important part of most people's lives. Why should it be a surprise that keeping people healthy and dealing with ill health is a major employer?
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
No group more likely to be a victim of crime than young black men.
IIRC correctly statistics are published to show the ethnicity of, for example, homicide victims, but are not available to show the ethnicity of homicide perpetrators.
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
No question it was a racist remark. What happens next? Should the Tories give the money back? To avoid the taint of racism? Probably, but its a bit old chunk of money. More broadly what do we want for the funding for political parties? Many, I suspect, think large donations from individuals should not be allowed. What do they want in return? Arguably the same ought to apply to Unions funding Labour.
Yes, I think Casino posted it a couple of days back. It's also a demonstration that a lot of congressional staffers are dumb as rocks.
Mmm, but also I think a demonstration that the technical rules of procedure are usually less important in practice than the political dynamics and relationships. The rules are mostly obscure because they almost always don't matter.
They very much do in Congress.
The rules that reinforce the political dynamics matter and are well known (eg the filibuster). The ones that in theory would allow for actions that would go against the political dynamics generally don't matter and aren't well known.
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
Obviously.
It's clear there are different standards applied to the two parties. If Hester was a Labour donor his comments and the follow-up to them would be the front page lead of every Tory newspaper day after day. That would ensure major broadcaster take up. The current Tory holding position is deeply cynical and entirely hypocritical but it will probably work.
The Tories are taking the line that saying you hate a black woman is not racist.
As I’ve been saying for a long while, it is obvious the Tories have an issue with racism.
The Tory line to take on the morning round is that their £10m donor who said Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women was not being racist and they’d like to keep the £10m
I was liking the bit in the article where he/reps put forward the argument that he's not racist because he once did something nice for non-white people. Racists seem to have great faith in this line of argument (see also 'some of my best friends are...'). But it's like saying Jimmy Savile wasn't a child molester because he did some nice things for some children.
There's racism and misogyny there (obviously) but what there also is is that boorish self-regarding assumption that people want to hear your 'colourful and robust' views. I can't stand people like that.
I mean, wtf is he coming out with this sort of shit about Diane Abbott in a business meeting?
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
No question it was a racist remark. What happens next? Should the Tories give the money back? To avoid the taint of racism? Probably, but its a bit old chunk of money. More broadly what do we want for the funding for political parties? Many, I suspect, think large donations from individuals should not be allowed. What do they want in return? Arguably the same ought to apply to Unions funding Labour.
Seems fairly obvious and straightforward. Cap donations at 1k per person per year. Unions can co-ordinate collections but they would be using up the individuals donation limit if its done.
Personally not a fan of Diane Abbott, mainly for her hypocrisy around schooling her kids (privately - natch), and her comments about black mothers that would definitely be considered racist if a white woman said it about white mothers. But she has suffered appalling abuse over the years, mainly for being a black woman (and that's aside of having had to have sex with Jeremy Corbyn), and no-one should have to have that simply because they are a public figure. I do wonder where this story came from. Who dragged it up and why?
More broadly of coarse many Tories are racist. They are often a bit like my 85 year old father, an ex policeman of 30 years service and a Grenadier Guardsman before that. They were born into different times, and have not had the upbringing of a twenty year old now. They often retain tropes that shock the younger generation. They make jokes about the Irish, and talk about wacky baccy.
At the same time Labour has its share of issues, as many of its supporters try to tread the line of deploring the actions of Israel whilst not deploring the existence of Israel, and definitely not hating Jews, no sir, no Jew hatred here.
FPTP leads to fewer larger parties and they tend to be broad coalitions. You get all sorts. If this idiot apologises it won't be enough for those who hate the Tories. If they give the money back it still won't be enough.
Being healthy is an important part of my life. I think it's an important part of most people's lives. Why should it be a surprise that keeping people healthy and dealing with ill health is a major employer?
Quite. It's like the inverse of the agricultural revolution.
The problem is too few of those NHS workers are preventing people getting sick, and are instead desperately plugging the holes left by underinvestment in Public Health.
The trouble with the Left is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it refuses to acknowledge and the trouble with the Right is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it does acknowledge.
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
Cyclefree, much as I love her input to this forum, goes big on the number of women killed by men each year, but fails to mention the fair higher number of men killed by men.
But not in a domestic setting or by serving Police Officers stalking random women.
Personally not a fan of Diane Abbott, mainly for her hypocrisy around schooling her kids (privately - natch), and her comments about black mothers that would definitely be considered racist if a white woman said it about white mothers. But she has suffered appalling abuse over the years, mainly for being a black woman (and that's aside of having had to have sex with Jeremy Corbyn), and no-one should have to have that simply because they are a public figure. I do wonder where this story came from. Who dragged it up and why?
More broadly of coarse many Tories are racist. They are often a bit like my 85 year old father, an ex policeman of 30 years service and a Grenadier Guardsman before that. They were born into different times, and have not had the upbringing of a twenty year old now. They often retain tropes that shock the younger generation. They make jokes about the Irish, and talk about wacky baccy.
At the same time Labour has its share of issues, as many of its supporters try to tread the line of deploring the actions of Israel whilst not deploring the existence of Israel, and definitely not hating Jews, no sir, no Jew hatred here.
FPTP leads to fewer larger parties and they tend to be broad coalitions. You get all sorts. If this idiot apologises it won't be enough for those who hate the Tories. If they give the money back it still won't be enough.
“wacky baccy” is racist? Genuine question.
No, just a reflection of antiquated attitudes. No-one under 50 calls weed 'wacky-baccy' but the old folks do. My dad did, just this weekend.
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
No question it was a racist remark. What happens next? Should the Tories give the money back? To avoid the taint of racism? Probably, but its a bit old chunk of money. More broadly what do we want for the funding for political parties? Many, I suspect, think large donations from individuals should not be allowed. What do they want in return? Arguably the same ought to apply to Unions funding Labour.
For me, whether the Tories keep the money or not is much less important than they state Hester's comments were racist. I think it's arguable that they took the cash in good faith and so do not need to return it. It's politically difficult but it's a lot better than where they are at the moment.
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
Predatory men though wasn't it?
Not sure anyway who is claiming violence against women is higher than violence against men, isn't it the irrefutable fact that most violence (against men and women) is committed by men?
Dr. Foxy, men are both a higher proportion of victims and aggressors in that situation (also for violent crime).
The problem is it's fashionable to discuss female victims and male aggressors, but not the other way around for either, which creates the entirely false perception that men are inherently aggressors and women victims. If you're a male victim, especially with a female attacker, you're out of luck.
Unsure if it's still the case but a few years ago there was literally no funding whatsoever for refuges for male victims of domestic abuse. While a minority, male victims are still (again, from memory so I stand to be corrected) between a third and two-fifths of victims, though one Canadian study found a male majority of victims.
Global sea surface temperatures, aside from being at a modern-era record high of 21.21°C for the third consecutive day, are also in crazy-town territory for the standard deviation, yesterday at 5.68σ above the 1982-2011 mean. That's 1-in-150 million for a normal distribution. https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1766886096577957960
I suppose that the crazy temperatures over the past year are being driven by the ENSO?
Perhaps the scariest effect of the current situation is that it sets a high water mark that won't be reached again until the next El Nino year - you can almost hear the denialists cueing up their "but sea surface temperatures are much cooler than they were during 2023-24! what are you worrying about?" tweets which they'll be bombarding us with for the rest of the decade...
In a fortnight the sea temperature will have been at a record for every day of the last year.
Reverting the ban on high sulfur fuel oils would probably help in the short term. Downside is the extra couple of 100k deaths from air pollution.
Pick your poison: SO2 or CO2.
The current El Nino is weakening and will probably end in the next few months, so temperatures will likely fall back to being towards the top end of the last decade's average rather than way above it.
The point is that natural (plus, as you say, other sources of anthropogenic) variation on top of the warming trend will lead to peaks and troughs in the pattern. We're almost certainly at such a peak right now, and experience shows that denialists will try to use the inevitable trough as evidence that warming has stopped or reversed.
That's certainly what happened following the 2014-16 double El Nino year. There's also evidence that there's a 30 year cyclical variation in global mean sea levels which seems to have been responsible for the supposed 'hiatus' in sea level rise in the early-mid 2000s - expect that one to rear its head again in a decade's time...
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
No question it was a racist remark. What happens next? Should the Tories give the money back? To avoid the taint of racism? Probably, but its a bit old chunk of money. More broadly what do we want for the funding for political parties? Many, I suspect, think large donations from individuals should not be allowed. What do they want in return? Arguably the same ought to apply to Unions funding Labour.
Seems fairly obvious and straightforward. Cap donations at 1k per person per year. Unions can co-ordinate collections but they would be using up the individuals donation limit if its done.
This is such an obviously good idea. I would also welcome lifting the cap on spending if you had an individual donation limit. People should benefit from grassroots popularity.
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
Cyclefree, much as I love her input to this forum, goes big on the number of women killed by men each year, but fails to mention the fair higher number of men killed by men.
Perhaps whenever the subject of violence is discussed we ought to add the rider: 'Almost all serious physical violence in the world is meted out by men, with the victims being mainly men too but also including huge numbers of women and girls'.
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
Cyclefree, much as I love her input to this forum, goes big on the number of women killed by men each year, but fails to mention the fair higher number of men killed by men.
But not in a domestic setting or by serving Police Officers stalking random women.
Not your most impressive post.
Why are the ways women get murdered more important than the ways men get murdered?
Personally not a fan of Diane Abbott, mainly for her hypocrisy around schooling her kids (privately - natch), and her comments about black mothers that would definitely be considered racist if a white woman said it about white mothers. But she has suffered appalling abuse over the years, mainly for being a black woman (and that's aside of having had to have sex with Jeremy Corbyn), and no-one should have to have that simply because they are a public figure. I do wonder where this story came from. Who dragged it up and why?
More broadly of coarse many Tories are racist. They are often a bit like my 85 year old father, an ex policeman of 30 years service and a Grenadier Guardsman before that. They were born into different times, and have not had the upbringing of a twenty year old now. They often retain tropes that shock the younger generation. They make jokes about the Irish, and talk about wacky baccy.
At the same time Labour has its share of issues, as many of its supporters try to tread the line of deploring the actions of Israel whilst not deploring the existence of Israel, and definitely not hating Jews, no sir, no Jew hatred here.
FPTP leads to fewer larger parties and they tend to be broad coalitions. You get all sorts. If this idiot apologises it won't be enough for those who hate the Tories. If they give the money back it still won't be enough.
“wacky baccy” is racist? Genuine question.
No, just a reflection of antiquated attitudes. No-one under 50 calls weed 'wacky-baccy' but the old folks do. My dad did, just this weekend.
It crops up every now and then with someone trying to be all Guy Ritchie.
It's the sort of statistic Conservative MPs trot out as the ambulances queue up at the Royal Free.
The money's been provided and the workers employed.
Now unless you want some 'here this year, gone next year' health minister to micromanage everything then its the responsibility of the 'envy of the world' to use its resources effectively.
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
Cyclefree, much as I love her input to this forum, goes big on the number of women killed by men each year, but fails to mention the fair higher number of men killed by men.
Perhaps whenever the subject of violence is discussed we ought to add the rider: 'Almost all serious physical violence in the world is meted out by men, with the victims being mainly men too but also including huge numbers of women and girls'.
Is gender the only demographic characteristic you would call out?
The trouble with the Left is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it refuses to acknowledge and the trouble with the Right is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it does acknowledge.
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
Cyclefree, much as I love her input to this forum, goes big on the number of women killed by men each year, but fails to mention the fair higher number of men killed by men.
But not in a domestic setting or by serving Police Officers stalking random women.
Not your most impressive post.
Why are the ways women get murdered more important than the ways men get murdered?
Why is the nationality (whisper: religion) of one child rapist more important than that of others?
Dr. Foxy, men are both a higher proportion of victims and aggressors in that situation (also for violent crime).
The problem is it's fashionable to discuss female victims and male aggressors, but not the other way around for either, which creates the entirely false perception that men are inherently aggressors and women victims. If you're a male victim, especially with a female attacker, you're out of luck.
Unsure if it's still the case but a few years ago there was literally no funding whatsoever for refuges for male victims of domestic abuse. While a minority, male victims are still (again, from memory so I stand to be corrected) between a third and two-fifths of victims, though one Canadian study found a male majority of victims.
"Compared with most other crimes, the homicide rate remains very low, with 9.9 homicides recorded per million population during the year ending March 2023. This was the lowest rate per population since the year ending March 2016 (excluding the coronavirus pandemic-affected year ending March 2021 (9.3)) (Figure 1)."
"As in previous years, the majority of homicide victims were male, making up around 7 in 10 of all victims (71%) with around 3 in 10 being female (29%)."
"Almost 7 in 10 (409 or 69%) of all homicide victims in the year ending March 2023 were from the White ethnic group (based on the ethnicity being identified by the investigating police officer). This compares with 82% of people identifying as being in the White ethnic group at the time of the last Census of Population in England and Wales in 2021 (2021 Census)."
"Adult women victims (defined as those aged 16 years and over) were more commonly killed by a partner or ex-partner (35%) or a family member (10%), in the year ending March 2023. For adult males, the suspected killer was more commonly a friend or acquaintance (26%) or a stranger (19%).
"There were 100 domestic homicides in the year ending March 2023, a decrease of 37 (27%) compared with the previous year. This was the lowest annual total since these data were electronically collected in 1977, although this number may increase as further homicide suspects are charged. By sex, 7 in 10 victims of domestic homicide were women (70%) and 3 in 10 were men (30%)."
"For the three-year period year ending March 2021 to the year ending March 2023, the vast majority of suspects convicted of homicide were male (1,216 or 92%).
"For the three-year period year ending March 2021 to the year ending March 2023, when looking at the principal suspect of a homicide offence, around two-thirds (68%) of those convicted were identified as White. This was a lower representation than in the general population (around 82%), based on Census 2021 population estimates."
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
Cyclefree, much as I love her input to this forum, goes big on the number of women killed by men each year, but fails to mention the fair higher number of men killed by men.
But not in a domestic setting or by serving Police Officers stalking random women.
Not your most impressive post.
Why are the ways women get murdered more important than the ways men get murdered?
Why is the nationality (whisper: religion) of one child rapist more important than that of others?
They are not. But when one religious group perpetrates crimes at higher rates than others it is worth discussing the roots of it, just like when men commit certain crimes more than women do.
But Cyclefree's obsession is with women as victims of murder, even when men are the main victims.
The Tories are taking the line that saying you hate a black woman is not racist.
As I’ve been saying for a long while, it is obvious the Tories have an issue with racism.
The Tory line to take on the morning round is that their £10m donor who said Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women was not being racist and they’d like to keep the £10m
Will Labour return the whip to Diane Abbott, unjustly suspended.
Or is their anger about this confected and synthetic and they don't really give a damn about her ?
I don't think they have to give a damn about Diane Abbott to understand that a) what was reportedly said is absolutely inexcusable and b) it is somewhat wider in scope than that one individual.
The fact that the Tory spokespeople are out on the media milk round trying to defend it as basically "a confection that is now so old as to be irrelevant" suggests that they maybe haven't heard what everyone else has heard.
I think part of the issue is that the anti-Diane Abbott bile in the media was once very strong, and Tory MPs were part of that milleu where it was acceptable to say some very offensive things about her. A lot of that would have been the normal political knockabout directed at someone who made numerical mistakes in interviews, but it was particularly aggressive towards Abbott compared to other senior Corbynites, and it sometimes strayed over the line.
Bearing in mind that these comments were reportedly made in between the murders of Jo Cox MP and David Amess MP, and it becomes even more important that the Tories are willing to stand up and say that they won't have anything to do with the man who made them.
Comments
First a disgraced former Tory MP and deputy chairman moves to Reform because the conservatives weren't remotely racist enough.
Then the largest conservative donor says Diane Abbot makes him want to hate all black women and should be shot.
Real headscratcher.
Using Carter Ruck is the equivalent of throwing a Nuclear Bomb into a domestic argument about the colour of new wallpaper..
#thirdpersonwanker
Erm. Apart from when he stood for the SDP at Oxford.
"Like many Tory donors, I do occasionally experiment with racism. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the sentiments I shared *half a decade ago* caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother's day. F"
2010 was about the personalities: Dave, Gordon and Nick. 2015 was very much Dave vs Ed, with the approval ratings outperforming the polls. 2017 was about Brexit. 2019 was about Brexit and Boris vs Jeremy. This one isn't like that.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/timeseries/c9lg/pse
How many Conservative politicians will notice ?
But if Johnson re-emerged to give it a second shot, a lot of people would be fired up to stop him.
The fact that the Tory spokespeople are out on the media milk round trying to defend it as basically "a confection that is now so old as to be irrelevant" suggests that they maybe haven't heard what everyone else has heard.
“The client structure is 97% shits, 3% wankers. The wanker segment represents a new area of business and is growing rapidly.”
Its when they're caught in the 'do as I say not as I do' hypocrisy that they're in trouble.
https://www.rawstory.com/james-lankford-border-true-oklahoma/
Fewer than three seconds of the State of the Union Address by President Joe Biden is getting a Republican senator in trouble.
KWTV reported Monday that Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, the key architect of the conservative border policy that could have passed the House and Senate, appeared to agree with Biden about details in the plan.
During the speech, Biden said, "That bipartisan deal would hire 1,500 more border security agents and officers, 100 more immigration judges to help tackle a backload of 2 million cases, 4,300 more asylum officers and new policies so they can resolve cases in 6 months instead of 6 years."
Biden also said there would be, "100 more high-tech drug detection machines to significantly increase the ability to screen and stop vehicles from smuggling fentanyl into America. This bill would save lives and bring order to the border. It would also give me as President new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the number of migrants at the border is overwhelming.
"The Border Patrol Union endorsed the bill. The Chamber of Commerce endorsed the bill. I believe that given the opportunity, a majority of the House and Senate would endorse it as well."
The crowd of Republicans booed the bill — while Lankford was seen on camera agreeing and mouthing "It's true."..
Despite warnings from lawyers, the communities secretary wants to use parliamentary privilege to target groups directly
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/12/michael-gove-to-name-organisations-affected-by-new-extremism-definition
[Let's see if this post ages well... If anything can precipitate an election it is surely someone asserting that it won't happen, on an internet forum.]
I do wonder where this story came from. Who dragged it up and why?
More broadly of coarse many Tories are racist. They are often a bit like my 85 year old father, an ex policeman of 30 years service and a Grenadier Guardsman before that. They were born into different times, and have not had the upbringing of a twenty year old now. They often retain tropes that shock the younger generation. They make jokes about the Irish, and talk about wacky baccy.
At the same time Labour has its share of issues, as many of its supporters try to tread the line of deploring the actions of Israel whilst not deploring the existence of Israel, and definitely not hating Jews, no sir, no Jew hatred here.
FPTP leads to fewer larger parties and they tend to be broad coalitions. You get all sorts. If this idiot apologises it won't be enough for those who hate the Tories. If they give the money back it still won't be enough.
I’ve set the ball rolling, albeit in the third person.
Moving to 1 in 11 by 2036/7 lol.
No abuse should be acceptable, but I do wonder why abuse against male and/or Conservative and/or white MPs does not get the same anger and sentiment as Abbott's does.
I love this country. My family and I owe it so much. The time has now come for us all to stand together to combat the forces of division and beat this poison. We must face down the extremists who would tear us apart. There must be leadership, not pandering or appeasement.... a country of kind, decent, tolerant people.
Conservative donor: "I think Diane Abbott should be shot"
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
*Obviously not really, although it would have been hilarious if Scotland had won that game (which they basically did) and beaten Ireland only to miss out of the 6 nations title by losing to Italy...
If UK politics were looking for a better model the only one available is a slow but planned return to mass membership of political parties, something that was normal in the post war world and certainly into the 1960s.
Now, if someone is a party member instinct asks three questions: Are you somehow on the payroll; are you an oddity; how is this going to help your ambitions?
It's actually one that's been silently fought for many decades, and the lazy, nonsensical Tryandists are winning
I'm making a stand for Trytoism. It's a fight for good grammar and a loyal love of lucid language
Try to tell me why I'm wrong; attempt and explain..
Pick your poison: SO2 or CO2.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/award-winning-rapper-says-arts-council-england-is-punishing-me-over-racism-claims-amid-legal-battle/ar-BB1jHV6T?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=4348eeca44c94eed9f16047dc316df97&ei=28
For the angry of the left a lab tory is someone who spends money and cuts taxes of 'people like them' instead of 'people like us'.
It's rNHS
Understaffed, underfunded, envy of the world.
Keep clapping.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-68540733
It's clear there are different standards applied to the two parties. If Hester was a Labour donor his comments and the follow-up to them would be the front page lead of every Tory newspaper day after day. That would ensure major broadcaster take up. The current Tory holding position is deeply cynical and entirely hypocritical but it will probably work.
I mean, wtf is he coming out with this sort of shit about Diane Abbott in a business meeting?
The problem is too few of those NHS workers are preventing people getting sick, and are instead desperately plugging the holes left by underinvestment in Public Health.
https://twitter.com/DavidBennun/status/1767486114611298702
Not your most impressive post.
Is it ever the fault of the NHS ?
Anyway the Starmer government will solve the problem of ever increasing money and workers for the NHS.
Syrian refugee in ‘fawning’ BBC documentary raped child seven times
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/09/syrian-refugee-in-fawning-bbc-documentary-raped-child/
The problem is it's fashionable to discuss female victims and male aggressors, but not the other way around for either, which creates the entirely false perception that men are inherently aggressors and women victims. If you're a male victim, especially with a female attacker, you're out of luck.
Unsure if it's still the case but a few years ago there was literally no funding whatsoever for refuges for male victims of domestic abuse. While a minority, male victims are still (again, from memory so I stand to be corrected) between a third and two-fifths of victims, though one Canadian study found a male majority of victims.
The point is that natural (plus, as you say, other sources of anthropogenic) variation on top of the warming trend will lead to peaks and troughs in the pattern. We're almost certainly at such a peak right now, and experience shows that denialists will try to use the inevitable trough as evidence that warming has stopped or reversed.
That's certainly what happened following the 2014-16 double El Nino year. There's also evidence that there's a 30 year cyclical variation in global mean sea levels which seems to have been responsible for the supposed 'hiatus' in sea level rise in the early-mid 2000s - expect that one to rear its head again in a decade's time...
Now unless you want some 'here this year, gone next year' health minister to micromanage everything then its the responsibility of the 'envy of the world' to use its resources effectively.
"Compared with most other crimes, the homicide rate remains very low, with 9.9 homicides recorded per million population during the year ending March 2023. This was the lowest rate per population since the year ending March 2016 (excluding the coronavirus pandemic-affected year ending March 2021 (9.3)) (Figure 1)."
"As in previous years, the majority of homicide victims were male, making up around 7 in 10 of all victims (71%) with around 3 in 10 being female (29%)."
"Almost 7 in 10 (409 or 69%) of all homicide victims in the year ending March 2023 were from the White ethnic group (based on the ethnicity being identified by the investigating police officer). This compares with 82% of people identifying as being in the White ethnic group at the time of the last Census of Population in England and Wales in 2021 (2021 Census)."
"Adult women victims (defined as those aged 16 years and over) were more commonly killed by a partner or ex-partner (35%) or a family member (10%), in the year ending March 2023. For adult males, the suspected killer was more commonly a friend or acquaintance (26%) or a stranger (19%).
"There were 100 domestic homicides in the year ending March 2023, a decrease of 37 (27%) compared with the previous year. This was the lowest annual total since these data were electronically collected in 1977, although this number may increase as further homicide suspects are charged. By sex, 7 in 10 victims of domestic homicide were women (70%) and 3 in 10 were men (30%)."
"For the three-year period year ending March 2021 to the year ending March 2023, the vast majority of suspects convicted of homicide were male (1,216 or 92%).
"For the three-year period year ending March 2021 to the year ending March 2023, when looking at the principal suspect of a homicide offence, around two-thirds (68%) of those convicted were identified as White. This was a lower representation than in the general population (around 82%), based on Census 2021 population estimates."
But Cyclefree's obsession is with women as victims of murder, even when men are the main victims.
Bearing in mind that these comments were reportedly made in between the murders of Jo Cox MP and David Amess MP, and it becomes even more important that the Tories are willing to stand up and say that they won't have anything to do with the man who made them.