'His school routinely washed uniforms for children whose families didn’t have a washing machine.
The school recently stepped in to help after discovering a pupil begging outside a supermarket and its free breakfast club was “really needed”. But lack of sleep had become another big symptom of poverty – and a barrier to learning.
“We’ve got a lot of kids in homes with not enough beds or a mum sleeping with two or three children,” the head said. Support staff would often take children out of class who weren’t coping because of exhaustion to let them sleep for an hour or two. “Some children are falling asleep in lessons, and not just the little ones,” he said.'
The obvious answer is to make every school a boarding school so every kid gets fed, gets a bed, discipline and support and all parents have time to work. Massive initial cost but imagine the benefits. This isn’t entirely serious but maybe it is.
I think you might be on to something, so let's push it a bit......
Disadvantaged children to be sent to boarding schools to fill up all the places caused by the introduction of VAT onto fees. All paid for by the local authorities. The scheme would need a good name, of course ... all I can think of so far is "Assisted Places".
"Of particular interest, though, are those Assisted Place holders who left school early and did not progress to university – the majority of whom came from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Even these individuals are now in solidly middle class occupations with good incomes. This suggests that they have benefitted from a private school premium over and above that associated with educational attainment"
There are two variations of the Mordaunt strategy which you could call Soft Mordaunt and Hard Mordaunt:
Soft Mordaunt - replace the leader and muddle on with the same strategy.
Hard Mordaunt - replace the leader and also try to reboot the party and reframe the debate. Kick out anyone who is Reform minded and attempt to dominate the centre by using Reform as a foil. Try to crowd Labour out by making it a Reform vs Conservative election.
There's also a right wing orientation strategy - it's only in her understandable lgbt wokism that Mordaunt is particularly centrist. She was far more actively pro-Brexit than Sunak for example, and her bigges parliamentary ally is Andrea Leadsom. She should embrace Truss's policy agenda and an 'all the talents' cabinet.
In the Lord Ashcroft poll, 2019 Tories have Boris in second place behind Penny Mourdant. It doesn’t really matter that Labour and Lib Dem voters hate (fear?) other potential Tory leaders less
What do you make of Patel and Badenoch, Isam?
I don’t know a lot about Badenoch really. I used to quite like Patel. To be honest I don’t follow politics as obsessively as I used to, hence my only real opinion is the Tories made a mistake getting rid of Boris.
I listened to a good interview with Suella Braverman the other day. Matt Forde’s Political Party Podcast, but that was from 2019 - she came across really well, and the hate she gets from people I disagree with on almost everything means I’d prob quite like her as PM.
There are two variations of the Mordaunt strategy which you could call Soft Mordaunt and Hard Mordaunt:
Soft Mordaunt - replace the leader and muddle on with the same strategy.
Hard Mordaunt - replace the leader and also try to reboot the party and reframe the debate. Kick out anyone who is Reform minded and attempt to dominate the centre by using Reform as a foil. Try to crowd Labour out by making it a Reform vs Conservative election.
There's also a right wing orientation strategy - it's only in her understandable lgbt wokism that Mordaunt is particularly centrist. She was far more actively pro-Brexit than Sunak for example, and her bigges parliamentary ally is Andrea Leadsom. She should embrace Truss's policy agenda and an 'all the talents' cabinet.
Yes, comrade!
Is this your stock response to all my posts now, regardless of whether they have any kind of bearing on foreign relations?
Imagine myself as a Tory MP with a majority circa 5-10k....on the personal narcissism front the fact that I am so wonderful and my constituents really love me makes me deludedly think I will buck the trend somewhat. But then I'm hearing on the Door Step that Sunak is a joke and loser, and it's getting worse. So, I'm worried, and I think I am going to lose despite how brilliant I am. Grossly unfair to me.
Then I look at Penny. She's an empty vessel, but she scrubs up well
Where does she actually stand on issues like immigration though.
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
Was back in the day. Or the policy of a substantial sector of the party. That’s why Corbyn, who a follower of that sector’s leader was so lukewarm about opposing Brexit in 2017 and indeed 2019.
Yes indeed. The 70s. Flares, prog rock, chopper bikes, Dirty Leeds ... and Labour more Brexity than the Conservatives.
And the Daily Mail delighting in a pro-European vote!
According to Steve Richards, a politician out of step with the Party on something important will not become leader. The example he gave was Ken Clarke, whose Europhilia did not mesh with the party. From this I assume Penny's pro-trans ness, albeit rowed back, will similarly disqualify her. Other examples I have thought of include Peter Walker (one-nation Tory in the Thatcher years) and Denis Healey (pro-military Labour in the Benn years). Given this and her lacklustre speech history, I would be very surprised if they can get her past the members.
Can't she just lie that she is in step.
Worked for SKS
I think they went for SKS because they wanted to win. I'm not sure the Tory party, at bottom, want to win. They don't know how to do politics any more and are a bit mizz. It's the equivalent of sulky teens whining about the world but never going outside. Casino is right about the upturn and in normal circs it would be enough but they don't seem to want it enough.
Suspect an improving economy will do Team 2024 about as much good as it did Team 1997; not zero but not enough to change things.
There's clearly something not right with the Conservatives at the moment, which means they really need a long holiday somewhere quiet. It's not quite that they don't want to win (or this conversation wouldn't be happening)... is it more that they have forgotten why they want to win?
Apart from not being Rishi, what would Penny do with six months of running the country?
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
Indeed, apart from being softer on Brexit and a bit closer to the EU but still out of it what difference would a Starmer government make to a Sunak government? VAT on school fees, even more woke and maybe spending and taxing and building houses in the greenbelt a bit more but that is about it.
If anything Labour has just moved to the centre with Starmer where the Tories have largely been for the last decade, even Brexit got 52% of the voters behind it. In opposition the Conservatives might move right again as they were post 1997 pre Cameron but they aren't now
If Starmer is really a Tory, what point is there in voting actual Tory, given Starmer seems to want the job and isn't distracted by all this nonsense?
Starmer isn't a Tory, he is basically on the Brownite wing of New Labour trying to present himself as a Blairite to win centrist swing voters who have voted Conservative since 2010
There are two variations of the Mordaunt strategy which you could call Soft Mordaunt and Hard Mordaunt:
Soft Mordaunt - replace the leader and muddle on with the same strategy.
Hard Mordaunt - replace the leader and also try to reboot the party and reframe the debate. Kick out anyone who is Reform minded and attempt to dominate the centre by using Reform as a foil. Try to crowd Labour out by making it a Reform vs Conservative election.
There's also a right wing orientation strategy - it's only in her understandable lgbt wokism that Mordaunt is particularly centrist. She was far more actively pro-Brexit than Sunak for example, and her bigges parliamentary ally is Andrea Leadsom. She should embrace Truss's policy agenda and an 'all the talents' cabinet.
Yes, comrade!
Is this your stock response to all my posts now, regardless of whether they have any kind of bearing on foreign relations?
It's my stock response to any of your posts that display the 'insight' I expect from you.
Are we really talking about the the fifth Tory leadership contest in five years?
There really is no hope for them.
Words literally fail me, I cannot conceive of a bigger screw up than trying to replace the Tory leader within a few weeks of the coming general election and expecting that this will work.
Why don´t they just play strip poker for it? Better still they could show the world some dignity and do a Celebrity Masked Singer contest? Maybe they could juggle live hand grenades, while doing the Total Wipe Out course.
If they went ahead with this, I think I would probably put decent money on a Kim Campbell style Tory wipe out.
The country is bust, drowning in shit and generally deeply unhappy and these third rate know nothings are arguing about whose turn it is to lead the rout...
When you talk about Britain, you're really not worth listening to at all.
According to Steve Richards, a politician out of step with the Party on something important will not become leader. The example he gave was Ken Clarke, whose Europhilia did not mesh with the party. From this I assume Penny's pro-trans ness, albeit rowed back, will similarly disqualify her. Other examples I have thought of include Peter Walker (one-nation Tory in the Thatcher years) and Denis Healey (pro-military Labour in the Benn years). Given this and her lacklustre speech history, I would be very surprised if they can get her past the members.
Can't she just lie that she is in step.
Worked for SKS
I think they went for SKS because they wanted to win. I'm not sure the Tory party, at bottom, want to win. They don't know how to do politics any more and are a bit mizz. It's the equivalent of sulky teens whining about the world but never going outside. Casino is right about the upturn and in normal circs it would be enough but they don't seem to want it enough.
Suspect an improving economy will do Team 2024 about as much good as it did Team 1997; not zero but not enough to change things.
There's clearly something not right with the Conservatives at the moment, which means they really need a long holiday somewhere quiet. It's not quite that they don't want to win (or this conversation wouldn't be happening)... is it more that they have forgotten why they want to win?
Apart from not being Rishi, what would Penny do with six months of running the country?
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
Indeed, apart from being softer on Brexit and a bit closer to the EU but still out of it what difference would a Starmer government make to a Sunak government? VAT on school fees, even more woke and maybe spending and taxing and building houses in the greenbelt a bit more but that is about it.
If anything Labour has just moved to the centre with Starmer where the Tories have largely been for the last decade, even Brexit got 52% of the voters behind it. In opposition the Conservatives might move right again as they were post 1997 pre Cameron but they aren't now
If Starmer is really a Tory, what point is there in voting actual Tory, given Starmer seems to want the job and isn't distracted by all this nonsense?
You are forgetting that there are two intersecting dimensions to modern politics. One dimension is the traditional left right right on economic policy. There is no taste for communism or libertarianism in the majority of the electorate, so the two parties naturally align there. However, intersecting that at 90 degrees is the nationalist/internationalist dimension. And here there are clear differences with real impact on the economy and security of this country. Just wait till labour come in: there will be a large range of deals on security, trade (food and manufacturing), finance , immigration that go well beyond anything the tories would participate in. And what is more: the aim of all these deals will be to prepare the country for sm and cu in a second term. This will radically transform the framework of the economy in a way that popcons would resist tooth and nail..... thank goodness their time has passed.
Are we really talking about the the fifth Tory leadership contest in five years?
There really is no hope for them.
Words literally fail me, I cannot conceive of a bigger screw up than trying to replace the Tory leader within a few weeks of the coming general election and expecting that this will work.
Why don´t they just play strip poker for it? Better still they could show the world some dignity and do a Celebrity Masked Singer contest? Maybe they could juggle live hand grenades, while doing the Total Wipe Out course.
If they went ahead with this, I think I would probably put decent money on a Kim Campbell style Tory wipe out.
The country is bust, drowning in shit and generally deeply unhappy and these third rate know nothings are arguing about whose turn it is to lead the rout...
Words literally fail me,.. If only you had stopped there.
In the Lord Ashcroft poll, 2019 Tories have Boris in second place behind Penny Mourdant. It doesn’t really matter that Labour and Lib Dem voters hate (fear?) other potential Tory leaders less
What do you make of Patel and Badenoch, Isam?
I don’t know a lot about Badenoch really. I used to quite like Patel. To be honest I don’t follow politics as obsessively as I used to, hence my only real opinion is the Tories made a mistake getting rid of Boris.
I listened to a good interview with Suella Braverman the other day. Matt Forde’s Political Party Podcast, but that was from 2019 - she came across really well, and the hate she gets from people I disagree with on almost everything means I’d prob quite like her as PM.
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
They should have a policy to rejoin then LEAVE ALL OVER AGAIN
We all enjoyed it the first time. Absolute hoot
Brexit has normalised in the last 9-12 months in a way I didn't expect it to do.
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
A lot of people living with the problems it’s caused. People hunting for an Irish ancestor to enable them to work in the EU. Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
They should have a policy to rejoin then LEAVE ALL OVER AGAIN
We all enjoyed it the first time. Absolute hoot
Brexit has normalised in the last 9-12 months in a way I didn't expect it to do.
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
A lot of people living with the problems it’s caused. People hunting for an Irish ancestor to enable them to work in the EU. Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
How far back do they need to go, the Irish-ancestor-hunters? The Four Courts going up in that petrol store explosion in 1921 has interesting implications.
Furious Russian officials have threatened “scumbag” presidential election saboteurs with eight years in prison for pouring green ink into ballot boxes.
The crackdown comes ahead of an expected “flash mob” protest at noon on Sunday – the final day of voting – at the urging of exiled opposition leaders.
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
They should have a policy to rejoin then LEAVE ALL OVER AGAIN
We all enjoyed it the first time. Absolute hoot
Brexit has normalised in the last 9-12 months in a way I didn't expect it to do.
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
A lot of people living with the problems it’s caused. People hunting for an Irish ancestor to enable them to work in the EU. Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
People aren't really hunting an Irish ancestor to *enable* them to work in the EU, just to enable them to feel as though they can do it by right. It's more about identity than practicality.
There are two variations of the Mordaunt strategy which you could call Soft Mordaunt and Hard Mordaunt:
Soft Mordaunt - replace the leader and muddle on with the same strategy.
Hard Mordaunt - replace the leader and also try to reboot the party and reframe the debate. Kick out anyone who is Reform minded and attempt to dominate the centre by using Reform as a foil. Try to crowd Labour out by making it a Reform vs Conservative election.
There's also a right wing orientation strategy - it's only in her understandable lgbt wokism that Mordaunt is particularly centrist. She was far more actively pro-Brexit than Sunak for example, and her bigges parliamentary ally is Andrea Leadsom. She should embrace Truss's policy agenda and an 'all the talents' cabinet.
Yes, comrade!
Is this your stock response to all my posts now, regardless of whether they have any kind of bearing on foreign relations?
It's my stock response to any of your posts that display the 'insight' I expect from you.
Have you read the MH17 report yet?
There are worse things in life than online trolls, and 99.9% of the time I'm happy to let your posts go, however, this one has concerned me, as it's clear that you're no longer satisfied with confining your trolling to my posts discussing situations concerning Russia.
I would really prefer it if in future you didn't respond to my posts at all, and I'm very happy to afford you the same courtesy.
There will not be a no confidence vote (whatever happens in May). Sunak will remain Tory leader through to the election in the autumn. The party will then lose very badly.
That concludes this ex cathedra proclamation.
Well experience tells me it is never profitable to disagree with you.
Yes, the main issue seems to me to be that there is no career advantage in taking over as leader. Realistically you might reduce the deficit from 20 points to 10, but your party would still be out and so would you. Far better to be elected the fresh new leader after the election - and that, I suspect, is what the boosters for the various possible runners mainly have in mind.
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
They should have a policy to rejoin then LEAVE ALL OVER AGAIN
We all enjoyed it the first time. Absolute hoot
Brexit has normalised in the last 9-12 months in a way I didn't expect it to do.
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
A lot of people living with the problems it’s caused. People hunting for an Irish ancestor to enable them to work in the EU. Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
My daughter is working in France now. No need for Irish ancestor. Has a working visa which is about to get extended to three years meaning she can go back to work if she wants to for the next two winters with ease.
There are two variations of the Mordaunt strategy which you could call Soft Mordaunt and Hard Mordaunt:
Soft Mordaunt - replace the leader and muddle on with the same strategy.
Hard Mordaunt - replace the leader and also try to reboot the party and reframe the debate. Kick out anyone who is Reform minded and attempt to dominate the centre by using Reform as a foil. Try to crowd Labour out by making it a Reform vs Conservative election.
There's also a right wing orientation strategy - it's only in her understandable lgbt wokism that Mordaunt is particularly centrist. She was far more actively pro-Brexit than Sunak for example, and her bigges parliamentary ally is Andrea Leadsom. She should embrace Truss's policy agenda and an 'all the talents' cabinet.
Yes, comrade!
Is this your stock response to all my posts now, regardless of whether they have any kind of bearing on foreign relations?
It's my stock response to any of your posts that display the 'insight' I expect from you.
Have you read the MH17 report yet?
There are worse things in life than online trolls, and 99.9% of the time I'm happy to let your posts go, however, this one has concerned me, as it's clear that you're no longer satisfied with confining your trolling to my posts discussing situations concerning Russia.
I would really prefer it if in future you didn't respond to my posts at all, and I'm very happy to afford you the same courtesy.
Nah, people need reminding of your trolling for Putin and evil.
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
They should have a policy to rejoin then LEAVE ALL OVER AGAIN
We all enjoyed it the first time. Absolute hoot
Brexit has normalised in the last 9-12 months in a way I didn't expect it to do.
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
A lot of people living with the problems it’s caused. People hunting for an Irish ancestor to enable them to work in the EU. Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
The Erasmus scheme withdrawal happened because the people running the scheme came up with the genius idea of increasing the British contribution by a pretty enormous amount.
One rather gets the impression they thought up a number that would enable them to do all the things they’d always wanted.
According to Steve Richards, a politician out of step with the Party on something important will not become leader. The example he gave was Ken Clarke, whose Europhilia did not mesh with the party. From this I assume Penny's pro-trans ness, albeit rowed back, will similarly disqualify her. Other examples I have thought of include Peter Walker (one-nation Tory in the Thatcher years) and Denis Healey (pro-military Labour in the Benn years). Given this and her lacklustre speech history, I would be very surprised if they can get her past the members.
Can't she just lie that she is in step.
Worked for SKS
I think they went for SKS because they wanted to win. I'm not sure the Tory party, at bottom, want to win. They don't know how to do politics any more and are a bit mizz. It's the equivalent of sulky teens whining about the world but never going outside. Casino is right about the upturn and in normal circs it would be enough but they don't seem to want it enough.
Suspect an improving economy will do Team 2024 about as much good as it did Team 1997; not zero but not enough to change things.
There's clearly something not right with the Conservatives at the moment, which means they really need a long holiday somewhere quiet. It's not quite that they don't want to win (or this conversation wouldn't be happening)... is it more that they have forgotten why they want to win?
Apart from not being Rishi, what would Penny do with six months of running the country?
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
Indeed, apart from being softer on Brexit and a bit closer to the EU but still out of it what difference would a Starmer government make to a Sunak government? VAT on school fees, even more woke and maybe spending and taxing and building houses in the greenbelt a bit more but that is about it.
If anything Labour has just moved to the centre with Starmer where the Tories have largely been for the last decade, even Brexit got 52% of the voters behind it. In opposition the Conservatives might move right again as they were post 1997 pre Cameron but they aren't now
If Starmer is really a Tory, what point is there in voting actual Tory, given Starmer seems to want the job and isn't distracted by all this nonsense?
Starmer isn't a Tory, he is basically on the Brownite wing of New Labour trying to present himself as a Blairite to win centrist swing voters who have voted Conservative since 2010
You've just contradicted yourself *. I'm not trying to catch you out. I'm trying, and failing, to find reasons to vote Tory in preference to a Starmer led government. I expect there are many more likewise amongst those who will determine the result of the next election.
* You said, apart from being softer on Brexit and a bit closer to the EU but still out of it what difference would a Starmer government make to a Sunak government? Then you mentioned a couple of presumably minor differences
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
They should have a policy to rejoin then LEAVE ALL OVER AGAIN
We all enjoyed it the first time. Absolute hoot
Brexit has normalised in the last 9-12 months in a way I didn't expect it to do.
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
A lot of people living with the problems it’s caused. People hunting for an Irish ancestor to enable them to work in the EU. Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
My daughter is working in France now. No need for Irish ancestor. Has a working visa which is about to get extended to three years meaning she can go back to work if she wants to for the next two winters with ease.
Also the proliferation of digital nomad visas - worldwide - render much of this irrelevant
Scotland are an inch away from being an absolute cracker of a team
This is Ireland at home. Supposedly the 1st/2nd best team in the world (tho I think England showed they might be fading now)
Scotland are inventive, fast and have a superb defence
TBF fair it’s a Scotland/South African scratch side.
Finn Russell is a legend. First time in years I’ve enjoyed watching Bath (they’ve been in a slump for a decade). Watching Finn stress defences is glorious.
Labour are putting bar charts through people's doors which claim to be "Electoral Calculus General Election polling for Didcot and Wantage parliamentary constituency".
It then goes on to say "Why can we rely on polls like this? There are two types of polls, those using national data or those with exact local demographics ("MRP")..."
Except of course Electoral Calculus isn't polling. It's a projection - i.e. what someone thinks might happen. It has no more basis in fact than what you or I might think.
We're used to bar charts presenting a partial picture, but this isn't partial. It's a lie. It's calling something a "poll" which isn't a poll.
Maybe the Didcot & Wantage Labour CLP chair, a certain Mr @NickPalmer, could comment?
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
They should have a policy to rejoin then LEAVE ALL OVER AGAIN
We all enjoyed it the first time. Absolute hoot
Brexit has normalised in the last 9-12 months in a way I didn't expect it to do.
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
A lot of people living with the problems it’s caused. People hunting for an Irish ancestor to enable them to work in the EU. Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
My daughter is working in France now. No need for Irish ancestor. Has a working visa which is about to get extended to three years meaning she can go back to work if she wants to for the next two winters with ease.
The terms for staying in Erasmus were punitive, and I am still hosting on average four or five overseas exchange students each year, and our course sends out around 10 each year all around the world. Erasmus isn’t everything in the world of student exchange.
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
They should have a policy to rejoin then LEAVE ALL OVER AGAIN
We all enjoyed it the first time. Absolute hoot
Brexit has normalised in the last 9-12 months in a way I didn't expect it to do.
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
A lot of people living with the problems it’s caused. People hunting for an Irish ancestor to enable them to work in the EU. Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
My daughter is working in France now. No need for Irish ancestor. Has a working visa which is about to get extended to three years meaning she can go back to work if she wants to for the next two winters with ease.
The terms for staying in Erasmus were punitive, and I am still hosting on average four or five overseas exchange students each year, and our course sends out around 10 each year all around the world. Erasmus isn’t everything in the world of student exchange.
Yes AIUI way more eu students came to the Uk rather than the other way around. As you’d expect with superior UK universities and the English language
There is a market on bf: 'Next General Election - How many seats will the Conservatives lose?'
The base is 365.
I've been backing 200 or more. It's a thin market but a bit at 1.58 is still there.
Does anyone here think that the Conservatives will get more than 165 seats?
No i think they will get substantially less than 165. Why. Even my dad whos loyal conservative says he wants to give Jeremy Hunt a punch to wipe the smirk off his face.
Labour are putting bar charts through people's doors which claim to be "Electoral Calculus General Election polling for Didcot and Wantage parliamentary constituency".
It then goes on to say "Why can we rely on polls like this? There are two types of polls, those using national data or those with exact local demographics ("MRP")..."
Except of course Electoral Calculus isn't polling. It's a projection - i.e. what someone thinks might happen. It has no more basis in fact than what you or I might think.
We're used to bar charts presenting a partial picture, but this isn't partial. It's a lie. It's calling something a "poll" which isn't a poll.
Maybe the Didcot & Wantage Labour CLP chair, a certain Mr @NickPalmer, could comment?
The AI I currently use at work can get me to a 65% ok first draft in about 2 minutes, as opposed to 2 hours.
But, it does require me to feed it the key points & prompts, and then edit and correct the draft.
It's not a mindreader.
So does it actually save you time and/or other resources (such as your nerves) compared to just pounding it out?
Certainly the advent of the "word processor" increased my personal productivity AND preserved (a wee bit of) my sanity, compared with typewriters no matter how fancy.
Labour are putting bar charts through people's doors which claim to be "Electoral Calculus General Election polling for Didcot and Wantage parliamentary constituency".
It then goes on to say "Why can we rely on polls like this? There are two types of polls, those using national data or those with exact local demographics ("MRP")..."
Except of course Electoral Calculus isn't polling. It's a projection - i.e. what someone thinks might happen. It has no more basis in fact than what you or I might think.
We're used to bar charts presenting a partial picture, but this isn't partial. It's a lie. It's calling something a "poll" which isn't a poll.
Maybe the Didcot & Wantage Labour CLP chair, a certain Mr @NickPalmer, could comment?
(And yes, as you can tell, I am quite cross.)
I've seen it all now.
A Lib Dem complaining about dodgy bar charts.
They don't like it when the sandal's on the other foot.
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
They should have a policy to rejoin then LEAVE ALL OVER AGAIN
We all enjoyed it the first time. Absolute hoot
Brexit has normalised in the last 9-12 months in a way I didn't expect it to do.
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
A lot of people living with the problems it’s caused. People hunting for an Irish ancestor to enable them to work in the EU. Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
My daughter is working in France now. No need for Irish ancestor. Has a working visa which is about to get extended to three years meaning she can go back to work if she wants to for the next two winters with ease.
Also the proliferation of digital nomad visas - worldwide - render much of this irrelevant
It's interesting to think of the groups most affected by the Brexit travel/work changes. They're not the many people for whom a foreign holiday is a once-a-year, if not a once-in-lifetime, dream, or for whom working in the EU is an impossibility. It's made no difference to us personally, at least directly.
I think there're loads of people for whom the changes make no difference, and those who have the income and ability to cope. It's the ones in the middle the changes hurt most; and they're probably the ones who scream loudly at the BBC and Guardian.
Comic Relief went off the boil about 20 years ago.
Agreed. It’s past it’s prime. Lenny has come a long way from doing Frank Spencer impressions on New Faces in the seventies. Good for him, a role model, Lenny clearly knows comic relief is dying on its arse and has sacked it off.
I can remember seeing him in comic shops in the eighties. He was really into DC Comics then.
I know a lot of people don’t like him but I think he’s ace
Although it doesn't include an official resignation statement it surely fires the starting gun for a leadership contest.
Vaughan Gething will surely be favourite for the same reason Yousaf was in Scotland. And he would be the wrong choice for er, much the same reason.
To be fair, however, neither of the other likely candidates, Eluned Morgan and Jeremy Miles are obviously superior. The only thing they might have going for them in a grassroots contest is they both speak fluent Welsh and I don't think Vaughan Gething does, although he certainly speaks some. But that won't influence the unions or the Labour hierarchy.
Edit - and third, which is still about seven rates above Wales' politicians and rugby players.
Very good tip. Congrats
In the interests of fairness, I should point out @Penddu2 who took the opposite view was both persuasive and was bang on the money when he said it would be very close.
Now that Gething has won, the knives will be out for him. It was a very close run result with Miles winning the Labour members and Gething winning the Union voters. There are many Miles supporters who will claim that his very dodgy campaign donation made the difference, funding a telephone call centre to whip the union votes. The latest accusations now involve lobbying for a solar farm near Cardiff and there will now be a drip feed of negative stories about him.
This election is not over....it is just starting!!
Electoral Calculus is a political consultancy specialising in quantitative analysis and modelling for electoral and other market research projects. Its pre-poll prediction for the 2019 general election was the most accurate published forecast. It was founded by Martin Baxter, its CEO.
Electoral Calculus is a member of the British Polling Council.
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
They should have a policy to rejoin then LEAVE ALL OVER AGAIN
We all enjoyed it the first time. Absolute hoot
Brexit has normalised in the last 9-12 months in a way I didn't expect it to do.
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
A lot of people living with the problems it’s caused. People hunting for an Irish ancestor to enable them to work in the EU. Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
"Savage"? Those affected are a tiny tiny fraction of the population.
University exchange programmes continue worldwide, and rightly so.
Comic Relief went off the boil about 20 years ago.
Agreed. It’s past it’s prime. Lenny has come a long way from doing Frank Spencer impressions on New Faces in the seventies. Good for him, a role model, Lenny clearly knows comic relief is dying on its arse and has sacked it off.
I can remember seeing him in comic shops in the eighties. He was really into DC Comics then.
I know a lot of people don’t like him but I think he’s ace
He broke a lot of barriers and is still probably still the only Black British comedian anyone could name off the top of their head (I do enjoy Stephen K Amos more).
Like most comedians he was of his time - his Theophilus P Wildebeest was “funny” in a way of a black man of the time having to mock other black people to get approval - but he broke through. And his work for comic relief has been fantastic - not that I’ve watched it since I was in my teens.
The AI I currently use at work can get me to a 65% ok first draft in about 2 minutes, as opposed to 2 hours.
But, it does require me to feed it the key points & prompts, and then edit and correct the draft.
It's not a mindreader.
So does it actually save you time and/or other resources (such as your nerves) compared to just pounding it out?
Certainly the advent of the "word processor" increased my personal productivity AND preserved (a wee bit of) my sanity, compared with typewriters no matter how fancy.
Yeah, a bit. Sometimes I think: I want to write an article and make these five points. So it saves me doing all the boring drafting.
It doesn't save you thinking about the five points.
Although it doesn't include an official resignation statement it surely fires the starting gun for a leadership contest.
Vaughan Gething will surely be favourite for the same reason Yousaf was in Scotland. And he would be the wrong choice for er, much the same reason.
To be fair, however, neither of the other likely candidates, Eluned Morgan and Jeremy Miles are obviously superior. The only thing they might have going for them in a grassroots contest is they both speak fluent Welsh and I don't think Vaughan Gething does, although he certainly speaks some. But that won't influence the unions or the Labour hierarchy.
Edit - and third, which is still about seven rates above Wales' politicians and rugby players.
Very good tip. Congrats
In the interests of fairness, I should point out @Penddu2 who took the opposite view was both persuasive and was bang on the money when he said it would be very close.
Now that Gething has won, the knives will be out for him. It was a very close run result with Miles winning the Labour members and Gething winning the Union voters. There are many Miles supporters who will claim that his very dodgy campaign donation made the difference, funding a telephone call centre to whip the union votes. The latest accusations now involve lobbying for a solar farm near Cardiff and there will now be a drip feed of negative stories about him.
This election is not over....it is just starting!!
I think this is not so much a general election as a general erection - aka a total cockup.
Comic Relief went off the boil about 20 years ago.
Agreed. It’s past it’s prime. Lenny has come a long way from doing Frank Spencer impressions on New Faces in the seventies. Good for him, a role model, Lenny clearly knows comic relief is dying on its arse and has sacked it off.
I can remember seeing him in comic shops in the eighties. He was really into DC Comics then.
I know a lot of people don’t like him but I think he’s ace
He did a good series on how he came to Shakespeare very late in life, which somewhat showed a different side to him.
Budapest looked nice on this weeks Apprentice. Spain have a decent rugger side.
Budapest is quite lovely at times. Also grimy. Definitely better than Bucharest
Tbilisi is better than all of them. More exotic and strange and dreamy and with great food and wine. I adored it
Budapest does have the advantage of having been completely rebuilt after WW2. Behind all those fancy 18th century facades in Leopold Town it is all breeze block.
While it seems there are still those who fly the Conservative flag on here...
It's easy to be angry about the state of the country but that isn't really the point and anger will only get you so far. What will undermine any Conservative revival is a strong, positive, optimistic message for the future. It was once generally opined that things could only get better but for all those wishing to get rid of the Conservatives that has to be more than a catchy lyric.
How will it be better? For whom will it be better? When will people notice it getting better? Oddly enough it's the small things that make the difference, not the big things. Labour can actually afford granularity on this - pick some areas of social, economic and public policy, demonstrate the Conservative failure and illustrate how a Labour Government would improve the situation.
The words were spat at the prime minister with suppressed anger and entirely unsuppressed frustration. Alex Chalk, the lord chancellor and justice secretary, is a mild-mannered chap, one of the few loyalists in an increasingly disloyal cabinet. But when he saw the PM a week ago, Chalk snapped at Sunak’s failure to make a decision about overcrowding in prisons.
For weeks the Ministry of Justice has been pressing to introduce legislation on sentencing intended to ease the pressure on prisons, already full and approaching breaking point. For a government on the ropes it was politically unpalatable, but so was the alternative.
When the issue came to a head, witnesses say Chalk exclaimed: “Pass the bill or start releasing people early. Those are your only choices. Would you please just pick one!” Officials were so staggered by Chalk’s display of temper and concerned by Sunak’s indecision that the story spread to senior civil servants and ministers.
“Alex is one of the few Rishyites left,” said a cabinet colleague. “But even he’s beginning to wonder how long this can go on. No 10 doesn’t like making decisions.”
In the Lord Ashcroft poll, 2019 Tories have Boris in second place behind Penny Mourdant. It doesn’t really matter that Labour and Lib Dem voters hate (fear?) other potential Tory leaders less
What do you make of Patel and Badenoch, Isam?
I don’t know a lot about Badenoch really. I used to quite like Patel. To be honest I don’t follow politics as obsessively as I used to, hence my only real opinion is the Tories made a mistake getting rid of Boris.
I listened to a good interview with Suella Braverman the other day. Matt Forde’s Political Party Podcast, but that was from 2019 - she came across really well, and the hate she gets from people I disagree with on almost everything means I’d prob quite like her as PM.
I just wish Sir Keir wasn’t Labour leader, then I could happily take no interest in who wins
Both Patel and Braverman have a massive authoritarian streak and are not afraid to go way beyond what is either necessary or decent to get their way. Neither of them deserve to be anywhere near power.
Badenoch has not shown that streak in my mind as yet so I am willing to consider her. I don't see Mordant as being anywhere near as 'woke' as some like to claim. She strikes me as being far more of a 'live and let live' sort of politician unemcumbered by the bigotries of too many others in herparty.
Budapest looked nice on this weeks Apprentice. Spain have a decent rugger side.
Budapest is quite lovely at times. Also grimy. Definitely better than Bucharest
Tbilisi is better than all of them. More exotic and strange and dreamy and with great food and wine. I adored it
Budapest does have the advantage of having been completely rebuilt after WW2. Behind all those fancy 18th century facades in Leopold Town it is all breeze block.
The AI I currently use at work can get me to a 65% ok first draft in about 2 minutes, as opposed to 2 hours.
But, it does require me to feed it the key points & prompts, and then edit and correct the draft.
It's not a mindreader.
So does it actually save you time and/or other resources (such as your nerves) compared to just pounding it out?
Certainly the advent of the "word processor" increased my personal productivity AND preserved (a wee bit of) my sanity, compared with typewriters no matter how fancy.
Yeah, a bit. Sometimes I think: I want to write an article and make these five points. So it saves me doing all the boring drafting.
It doesn't save you thinking about the five points.
In about 2-4 years it will do all that. GPT6 or 7 or so
And then your job is gone
This is not personal, this is something we must all face, artists very much included
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
They should have a policy to rejoin then LEAVE ALL OVER AGAIN
We all enjoyed it the first time. Absolute hoot
Brexit has normalised in the last 9-12 months in a way I didn't expect it to do.
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
A lot of people living with the problems it’s caused. People hunting for an Irish ancestor to enable them to work in the EU. Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
My daughter is working in France now. No need for Irish ancestor. Has a working visa which is about to get extended to three years meaning she can go back to work if she wants to for the next two winters with ease.
The terms for staying in Erasmus were punitive, and I am still hosting on average four or five overseas exchange students each year, and our course sends out around 10 each year all around the world. Erasmus isn’t everything in the world of student exchange.
Yes AIUI way more eu students came to the Uk rather than the other way around. As you’d expect with superior UK universities and the English language
The big advantage of Erasmus is that it's a full brokerage system when none of the other exchanges are. So the sending institution keeps the student's fees while the receiving institution just has to fund the marginal cost of a few extra students on some courses.
Normally both the sending and receiving institutions want to take fees off the student, otherwise the sending institution is disincentivised from supporting these programmes. Alternatively you just get a bilateral arrangement between individual institutions that are more limiting. To work the scheme will also depend on roughly equal numbers going both ways, which often doesn't happen.
Levido’s team is anxiously watching Reform’s polling numbers and wondering whether Nigel Farage will return to lead the party. His former pollster, Chris Bruni-Lowe, has told him that if he comes back then Reform, currently polling in the mid-teens, would overtake the Tories, who are in the low twenties, “within 48 hours”.
The problem for Sunak is that while his right flank is exposed to Reform, new polling today by More in Common suggests that the policies Downing Street is using to woo the red-wall voters switching to Reform, such as deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, is alienating the once solid blue-wall Tory heartlands and reviving the Conservatives’ reputation as the “nasty party”.
More in Common polled 39 seats in the blue wall — seats where the Tories beat Labour by between 20 per cent and 51 per cent in 2019. With Labour now polling on average a point ahead of the Conservatives there, half those seats would fall to Sir Keir Starmer on a uniform swing. But the survey found that if one in four people there voted tactically, the Tories would lose 27 of them.
By large margins, voters regard Conservatives as more “uncaring” and “divided” than Labour. While 41 per cent of blue wall voters think the Tories “too right-wing”, only 32 per cent think Labour “too left-wing”.
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
They should have a policy to rejoin then LEAVE ALL OVER AGAIN
We all enjoyed it the first time. Absolute hoot
Brexit has normalised in the last 9-12 months in a way I didn't expect it to do.
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
A lot of people living with the problems it’s caused. People hunting for an Irish ancestor to enable them to work in the EU. Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
My daughter is working in France now. No need for Irish ancestor. Has a working visa which is about to get extended to three years meaning she can go back to work if she wants to for the next two winters with ease.
The terms for staying in Erasmus were punitive, and I am still hosting on average four or five overseas exchange students each year, and our course sends out around 10 each year all around the world. Erasmus isn’t everything in the world of student exchange.
Yes AIUI way more eu students came to the Uk rather than the other way around. As you’d expect with superior UK universities and the English language
The big advantage of Erasmus is that it's a full brokerage system when none of the other exchanges are. So the sending institution keeps the student's fees while the receiving institution just has to fund the marginal cost of a few extra students on some courses.
Normally both the sending and receiving institutions want to take fees off the student, otherwise the sending institution is disincentivised from supporting these programmes. Alternatively you just get a bilateral arrangement between individual institutions that are more limiting. To work the scheme will also depend on roughly equal numbers going both ways, which often doesn't happen.
I yield to your superior knowledge; if that is what it is
But I recall around the time of Brexit some academic Remoaner types really lamenting horizon (and I agree) but being much more muted about Erasmus (which they felt was not such a good deal for the UK)
In the Lord Ashcroft poll, 2019 Tories have Boris in second place behind Penny Mourdant. It doesn’t really matter that Labour and Lib Dem voters hate (fear?) other potential Tory leaders less
What do you make of Patel and Badenoch, Isam?
I don’t know a lot about Badenoch really. I used to quite like Patel. To be honest I don’t follow politics as obsessively as I used to, hence my only real opinion is the Tories made a mistake getting rid of Boris.
I listened to a good interview with Suella Braverman the other day. Matt Forde’s Political Party Podcast, but that was from 2019 - she came across really well, and the hate she gets from people I disagree with on almost everything means I’d prob quite like her as PM.
I just wish Sir Keir wasn’t Labour leader, then I could happily take no interest in who wins
Both Patel and Braverman have a massive authoritarian streak and are not afraid to go way beyond what is either necessary or decent to get their way. Neither of the deserve to be anywhere near power.
Badenoch has not shown that streak in my mind as yet so I am willing to consider her. I don't see Mordant as being anywhere near as 'woke' as some like to claim. She strikes me as being far more of a 'live and let live' sort of politician unemcumbered by the bigotries of too many others in herparty.
You wrote "herparty", and I read Heptarchy. "Goodness, that's a bit far back, even for Jacob Rees Mogg!"
As for Lenny Henry, I saw him at UEA in 1981 when he was starting off in the then alternate comedy scene but he was hugely popular with students because of Tiswas.
He did a 2-hour set for which we paid 50p and it was wonderful. That was back in the days of subsidised student entertainment - in the same week we had Jam and Madness play on successive nights, also for 50p a ticket.
You tell that to the youngsters today and they don't believe a word of it.
As for Lenny Henry, I saw him at UEA in 1981 when he was starting off in the then alternate comedy scene but he was hugely popular with students because of Tiswas.
He did a 2-hour set for which we paid 50p and it was wonderful. That was back in the days of subsidised student entertainment - in the same week we had Jam and Madness play on successive nights, also for 50p a ticket.
You tell that to the youngsters today and they don't believe a word of it.
Although it doesn't include an official resignation statement it surely fires the starting gun for a leadership contest.
Vaughan Gething will surely be favourite for the same reason Yousaf was in Scotland. And he would be the wrong choice for er, much the same reason.
To be fair, however, neither of the other likely candidates, Eluned Morgan and Jeremy Miles are obviously superior. The only thing they might have going for them in a grassroots contest is they both speak fluent Welsh and I don't think Vaughan Gething does, although he certainly speaks some. But that won't influence the unions or the Labour hierarchy.
Edit - and third, which is still about seven rates above Wales' politicians and rugby players.
Very good tip. Congrats
In the interests of fairness, I should point out @Penddu2 who took the opposite view was both persuasive and was bang on the money when he said it would be very close.
Now that Gething has won, the knives will be out for him. It was a very close run result with Miles winning the Labour members and Gething winning the Union voters. There are many Miles supporters who will claim that his very dodgy campaign donation made the difference, funding a telephone call centre to whip the union votes. The latest accusations now involve lobbying for a solar farm near Cardiff and there will now be a drip feed of negative stories about him.
This election is not over....it is just starting!!
The questioning of the election has already started, by the way.
Levido’s team is anxiously watching Reform’s polling numbers and wondering whether Nigel Farage will return to lead the party. His former pollster, Chris Bruni-Lowe, has told him that if he comes back then Reform, currently polling in the mid-teens, would overtake the Tories, who are in the low twenties, “within 48 hours”.
Please Nigel, do it
If only for the lolz and the panic. The Tories deserve to be panicked
In the Lord Ashcroft poll, 2019 Tories have Boris in second place behind Penny Mourdant. It doesn’t really matter that Labour and Lib Dem voters hate (fear?) other potential Tory leaders less
What do you make of Patel and Badenoch, Isam?
I don’t know a lot about Badenoch really. I used to quite like Patel. To be honest I don’t follow politics as obsessively as I used to, hence my only real opinion is the Tories made a mistake getting rid of Boris.
I listened to a good interview with Suella Braverman the other day. Matt Forde’s Political Party Podcast, but that was from 2019 - she came across really well, and the hate she gets from people I disagree with on almost everything means I’d prob quite like her as PM.
I just wish Sir Keir wasn’t Labour leader, then I could happily take no interest in who wins
Both Patel and Braverman have a massive authoritarian streak and are not afraid to go way beyond what is either necessary or decent to get their way. Neither of the deserve to be anywhere near power.
Badenoch has not shown that streak in my mind as yet so I am willing to consider her. I don't see Mordant as being anywhere near as 'woke' as some like to claim. She strikes me as being far more of a 'live and let live' sort of politician unemcumbered by the bigotries of too many others in herparty.
You wrote "herparty", and I read Heptarchy. "Goodness, that's a bit far back, even for Jacob Rees Mogg!"
LOL.
Lady Godiva was from Mercia. Maybe she wants to use her as her role model.
JRM probably thinks these Saxon invaders are a bit too modern for his liking. Things haven't been the same since Ambrosius Aurelianus was in charge.
As for Lenny Henry, I saw him at UEA in 1981 when he was starting off in the then alternate comedy scene but he was hugely popular with students because of Tiswas.
He did a 2-hour set for which we paid 50p and it was wonderful. That was back in the days of subsidised student entertainment - in the same week we had Jam and Madness play on successive nights, also for 50p a ticket.
You tell that to the youngsters today and they don't believe a word of it.
Right.
When I were a lad at uni, we went to see Mark Steele, Charlie Chaplin and WS Gilbert live at Aberystwyth Arts Centre for 25p a head because t'uni threatened them all with death if they didn't turn up.
In the Lord Ashcroft poll, 2019 Tories have Boris in second place behind Penny Mourdant. It doesn’t really matter that Labour and Lib Dem voters hate (fear?) other potential Tory leaders less
What do you make of Patel and Badenoch, Isam?
I don’t know a lot about Badenoch really. I used to quite like Patel. To be honest I don’t follow politics as obsessively as I used to, hence my only real opinion is the Tories made a mistake getting rid of Boris.
I listened to a good interview with Suella Braverman the other day. Matt Forde’s Political Party Podcast, but that was from 2019 - she came across really well, and the hate she gets from people I disagree with on almost everything means I’d prob quite like her as PM.
I just wish Sir Keir wasn’t Labour leader, then I could happily take no interest in who wins
Both Patel and Braverman have a massive authoritarian streak and are not afraid to go way beyond what is either necessary or decent to get their way. Neither of the deserve to be anywhere near power.
Badenoch has not shown that streak in my mind as yet so I am willing to consider her. I don't see Mordant as being anywhere near as 'woke' as some like to claim. She strikes me as being far more of a 'live and let live' sort of politician unemcumbered by the bigotries of too many others in herparty.
You wrote "herparty", and I read Heptarchy. "Goodness, that's a bit far back, even for Jacob Rees Mogg!"
LOL.
Lady Godiva was from Mercia. Maybe she wants to use her as her role model.
JRM probably thinks these Saxon invaders are a bit too modern for his liking. Things haven't been the same since Ambrosius Aurelianus was in charge.
As for Lenny Henry, I saw him at UEA in 1981 when he was starting off in the then alternate comedy scene but he was hugely popular with students because of Tiswas.
He did a 2-hour set for which we paid 50p and it was wonderful. That was back in the days of subsidised student entertainment - in the same week we had Jam and Madness play on successive nights, also for 50p a ticket.
You tell that to the youngsters today and they don't believe a word of it.
Right.
When I were a lad at uni, we went to see Mark Steele, Charlie Chaplin and WS Gilbert live at Aberystwyth Arts Centre for 25p a head because t'uni threatened them all with death if they didn't turn up.
I remember seeing Chaucer reading selected passages from his funniest moments for a Penny. The warm up was Roland the Farter who wowed the audience with a jump, a whistle and a fart. We were still laughing as we bopped away to the minstrels after a surfeit of mead. Good times.
Back in the 1950s, Adlai Stevenson once said something like this: In America, any little boy can grow up to be president -- and that's just a chance he has to take.
So, with a suitable modification, perhaps Mordaunt has recognized that becoming Prime Minister at the head of a deeply unpopular party is just a chance she has to take.
In the Lord Ashcroft poll, 2019 Tories have Boris in second place behind Penny Mourdant. It doesn’t really matter that Labour and Lib Dem voters hate (fear?) other potential Tory leaders less
What do you make of Patel and Badenoch, Isam?
I don’t know a lot about Badenoch really. I used to quite like Patel. To be honest I don’t follow politics as obsessively as I used to, hence my only real opinion is the Tories made a mistake getting rid of Boris.
I listened to a good interview with Suella Braverman the other day. Matt Forde’s Political Party Podcast, but that was from 2019 - she came across really well, and the hate she gets from people I disagree with on almost everything means I’d prob quite like her as PM.
I just wish Sir Keir wasn’t Labour leader, then I could happily take no interest in who wins
Both Patel and Braverman have a massive authoritarian streak and are not afraid to go way beyond what is either necessary or decent to get their way. Neither of them deserve to be anywhere near power.
Badenoch has not shown that streak in my mind as yet so I am willing to consider her. I don't see Mordant as being anywhere near as 'woke' as some like to claim. She strikes me as being far more of a 'live and let live' sort of politician unemcumbered by the bigotries of too many others in herparty.
Apart from the Post Office handling, this was the red flag for me about Badenoch.
Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, has backed UK business secretary Kemi Badenoch in taking on what he calls “the woke”.
DeSantis, who is expected to challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, met Badenoch and foreign secretary James Cleverly on a visit to London this week.
Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, has backed UK business secretary Kemi Badenoch in taking on what he calls “the woke”.
DeSantis, who is expected to challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, met Badenoch and foreign secretary James Cleverly on a visit to London this week....
...Some of DeSantis’s views would be considered far outside mainstream UK politics – he recently signed a law to ban abortion in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy, for example.
So-called parental rights legislation passed under his governorship has also led to the removal of hundreds of books from school libraries in the state.
DeSantis insists only books that are “pornographic, violent or inappropriate” have been banned, but some school districts have responded to the new laws by removing books including The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Judy Blume’s Forever from circulation.
Budapest looked nice on this weeks Apprentice. Spain have a decent rugger side.
Budapest is quite lovely at times. Also grimy. Definitely better than Bucharest
Tbilisi is better than all of them. More exotic and strange and dreamy and with great food and wine. I adored it
Budapest does have the advantage of having been completely rebuilt after WW2. Behind all those fancy 18th century facades in Leopold Town it is all breeze block.
Sometimes there are interesting interiors behind anodyne exteriors. I like to think the faint ghostly tones of Zarah Leander could be heard..
As for Lenny Henry, I saw him at UEA in 1981 when he was starting off in the then alternate comedy scene but he was hugely popular with students because of Tiswas.
He did a 2-hour set for which we paid 50p and it was wonderful. That was back in the days of subsidised student entertainment - in the same week we had Jam and Madness play on successive nights, also for 50p a ticket.
You tell that to the youngsters today and they don't believe a word of it.
Right.
When I were a lad at uni, we went to see Mark Steele, Charlie Chaplin and WS Gilbert live at Aberystwyth Arts Centre for 25p a head because t'uni threatened them all with death if they didn't turn up.
I remember seeing Chaucer reading selected passages from his funniest moments for a Penny. The warm up was Roland the Farter who wowed the audience with a jump, a whistle and a fart. We were still laughing as we bopped away to the minstrels after a surfeit of mead. Good times.
Penny? We wouldn't pay a penny. When William Langland turned up to read Piers Plowman he had to pay us tuppence ha'penny before we would listen.
They adopted Blairism and it has screwed up the economy.
They need to go back to being conservatives.
They adopted UKIPism and it has screwed up the Country
Other than leaving the EU, which is also Labour party policy, in what way have they adopted UKIPism and how has it screwed up the country?
Leaving the EU is not Labour policy.
They should have a policy to rejoin then LEAVE ALL OVER AGAIN
We all enjoyed it the first time. Absolute hoot
Brexit has normalised in the last 9-12 months in a way I didn't expect it to do.
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
A lot of people living with the problems it’s caused. People hunting for an Irish ancestor to enable them to work in the EU. Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
My daughter is working in France now. No need for Irish ancestor. Has a working visa which is about to get extended to three years meaning she can go back to work if she wants to for the next two winters with ease.
The terms for staying in Erasmus were punitive, and I am still hosting on average four or five overseas exchange students each year, and our course sends out around 10 each year all around the world. Erasmus isn’t everything in the world of student exchange.
Yes AIUI way more eu students came to the Uk rather than the other way around. As you’d expect with superior UK universities and the English language
They were superior partly because of the overseas students. And staff. Now, not so much.
As for Lenny Henry, I saw him at UEA in 1981 when he was starting off in the then alternate comedy scene but he was hugely popular with students because of Tiswas.
He did a 2-hour set for which we paid 50p and it was wonderful. That was back in the days of subsidised student entertainment - in the same week we had Jam and Madness play on successive nights, also for 50p a ticket.
You tell that to the youngsters today and they don't believe a word of it.
Right.
When I were a lad at uni, we went to see Mark Steele, Charlie Chaplin and WS Gilbert live at Aberystwyth Arts Centre for 25p a head because t'uni threatened them all with death if they didn't turn up.
I remember seeing Chaucer reading selected passages from his funniest moments for a Penny. The warm up was Roland the Farter who wowed the audience with a jump, a whistle and a fart. We were still laughing as we bopped away to the minstrels after a surfeit of mead. Good times.
Penny? We wouldn't pay a penny. When William Langland turned up to read Piers Plowman he had to pay us tuppence ha'penny before we would listen.
What's this money nonsense? We hacked our own - or rather, formerly someone else's - silver to give the bard a reward for belting out that song about the old ruins of Badon.
As for Lenny Henry, I saw him at UEA in 1981 when he was starting off in the then alternate comedy scene but he was hugely popular with students because of Tiswas.
He did a 2-hour set for which we paid 50p and it was wonderful. That was back in the days of subsidised student entertainment - in the same week we had Jam and Madness play on successive nights, also for 50p a ticket.
You tell that to the youngsters today and they don't believe a word of it.
Right.
When I were a lad at uni, we went to see Mark Steele, Charlie Chaplin and WS Gilbert live at Aberystwyth Arts Centre for 25p a head because t'uni threatened them all with death if they didn't turn up.
I remember seeing Chaucer reading selected passages from his funniest moments for a Penny. The warm up was Roland the Farter who wowed the audience with a jump, a whistle and a fart. We were still laughing as we bopped away to the minstrels after a surfeit of mead. Good times.
Penny? We wouldn't pay a penny. When William Langland turned up to read Piers Plowman he had to pay us tuppence ha'penny before we would listen.
tuppence ha'penny?
When we had that Aristophanes in to give a reading, he paid 5 talents of gold for the privilege. Cash.
As for Lenny Henry, I saw him at UEA in 1981 when he was starting off in the then alternate comedy scene but he was hugely popular with students because of Tiswas.
He did a 2-hour set for which we paid 50p and it was wonderful. That was back in the days of subsidised student entertainment - in the same week we had Jam and Madness play on successive nights, also for 50p a ticket.
You tell that to the youngsters today and they don't believe a word of it.
Right.
When I were a lad at uni, we went to see Mark Steele, Charlie Chaplin and WS Gilbert live at Aberystwyth Arts Centre for 25p a head because t'uni threatened them all with death if they didn't turn up.
I remember seeing Chaucer reading selected passages from his funniest moments for a Penny. The warm up was Roland the Farter who wowed the audience with a jump, a whistle and a fart. We were still laughing as we bopped away to the minstrels after a surfeit of mead. Good times.
Penny? We wouldn't pay a penny. When William Langland turned up to read Piers Plowman he had to pay us tuppence ha'penny before we would listen.
Cicero used to pay us two sestertii to come and listen to his speeches when I were at uni.
(Edit: Pah! I see Malmesburius has out-anciented me.)
As for Lenny Henry, I saw him at UEA in 1981 when he was starting off in the then alternate comedy scene but he was hugely popular with students because of Tiswas.
He did a 2-hour set for which we paid 50p and it was wonderful. That was back in the days of subsidised student entertainment - in the same week we had Jam and Madness play on successive nights, also for 50p a ticket.
You tell that to the youngsters today and they don't believe a word of it.
Right.
When I were a lad at uni, we went to see Mark Steele, Charlie Chaplin and WS Gilbert live at Aberystwyth Arts Centre for 25p a head because t'uni threatened them all with death if they didn't turn up.
I remember seeing Chaucer reading selected passages from his funniest moments for a Penny. The warm up was Roland the Farter who wowed the audience with a jump, a whistle and a fart. We were still laughing as we bopped away to the minstrels after a surfeit of mead. Good times.
Penny? We wouldn't pay a penny. When William Langland turned up to read Piers Plowman he had to pay us tuppence ha'penny before we would listen.
Cicero used to pay us two sestertii to come and listen to his speeches when I were at uni.
Comments
https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ASSISTEDPLACESREPORT0310.pdf
I listened to a good interview with Suella Braverman the other day. Matt Forde’s Political Party Podcast, but that was from 2019 - she came across really well, and the hate she gets from people I disagree with on almost everything means I’d prob quite like her as PM.
https://shows.acast.com/the-political-party/episodes/suella-braverman-replay
I just wish Sir Keir wasn’t Labour leader, then I could happily take no interest in who wins
We may well have a closer relationship with the EU in future, but it won't be in the EU.
Have you read the MH17 report yet?
But, it does require me to feed it the key points & prompts, and then edit and correct the draft.
It's not a mindreader.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-68584788
Comic Relief went off the boil about 20 years ago.
Then there’s the totally unnecessary, indeed savage, withdrawal from the Erasmus scheme.
Furious Russian officials have threatened “scumbag” presidential election saboteurs with eight years in prison for pouring green ink into ballot boxes.
The crackdown comes ahead of an expected “flash mob” protest at noon on Sunday – the final day of voting – at the urging of exiled opposition leaders.
Banishment to Patrioticalternative.com for you.
I would really prefer it if in future you didn't respond to my posts at all, and I'm very happy to afford you the same courtesy.
298 people died on MH17.
This is Ireland at home. Supposedly the 1st/2nd best team in the world (tho I think England showed they might be fading now)
Scotland are inventive, fast and have a superb defence
One rather gets the impression they thought up a number that would enable them to do all the things they’d always wanted.
* You said, apart from being softer on Brexit and a bit closer to the EU but still out of it what difference would a Starmer government make to a Sunak government? Then you mentioned a couple of presumably minor differences
I wonder how many who appear are being paid.
Finn Russell is a legend. First time in years I’ve enjoyed watching Bath (they’ve been in a slump for a decade). Watching Finn stress defences is glorious.
Labour are putting bar charts through people's doors which claim to be "Electoral Calculus General Election polling for Didcot and Wantage parliamentary constituency".
https://twitter.com/stevecoleOxford/status/1767145280153981100/photo/1
It then goes on to say "Why can we rely on polls like this? There are two types of polls, those using national data or those with exact local demographics ("MRP")..."
Except of course Electoral Calculus isn't polling. It's a projection - i.e. what someone thinks might happen. It has no more basis in fact than what you or I might think.
We're used to bar charts presenting a partial picture, but this isn't partial. It's a lie. It's calling something a "poll" which isn't a poll.
Maybe the Didcot & Wantage Labour CLP chair, a certain Mr @NickPalmer, could comment?
(And yes, as you can tell, I am quite cross.)
The base is 365.
I've been backing 200 or more. It's a thin market but a bit at 1.58 is still there.
Does anyone here think that the Conservatives will get more than 165 seats?
A Lib Dem complaining about dodgy bar charts.
Certainly the advent of the "word processor" increased my personal productivity AND preserved (a wee bit of) my sanity, compared with typewriters no matter how fancy.
I think there're loads of people for whom the changes make no difference, and those who have the income and ability to cope. It's the ones in the middle the changes hurt most; and they're probably the ones who scream loudly at the BBC and Guardian.
I can remember seeing him in comic shops in the eighties. He was really into DC Comics then.
I know a lot of people don’t like him but I think he’s ace
This election is not over....it is just starting!!
Actually Electoral Calculus have commissioned/conducted MRP polls, this is their most recent poll, from February
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_vipoll_20240215.html
Edit - There's also these caveats.
Electoral Calculus is a political consultancy specialising in quantitative analysis and modelling for electoral and other market research projects. Its pre-poll prediction for the 2019 general election was the most accurate published forecast. It was founded by Martin Baxter, its CEO.
Electoral Calculus is a member of the British Polling Council.
University exchange programmes continue worldwide, and rightly so.
Like most comedians he was of his time - his Theophilus P Wildebeest was “funny” in a way of a black man of the time having to mock other black people to get approval - but he broke through. And his work for comic relief has been fantastic - not that I’ve watched it since I was in my teens.
It doesn't save you thinking about the five points.
Revealed: Grant Shapps aborts trip to Odesa after Russian missile threat
Putin’s men tracked the defence secretary’s movements in Ukraine. The Sunday Times joined him
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/grant-shapps-ukraine-visit-russia-war-vklzrghfg
It's easy to be angry about the state of the country but that isn't really the point and anger will only get you so far. What will undermine any Conservative revival is a strong, positive, optimistic message for the future. It was once generally opined that things could only get better but for all those wishing to get rid of the Conservatives that has to be more than a catchy lyric.
How will it be better? For whom will it be better? When will people notice it getting better? Oddly enough it's the small things that make the difference, not the big things. Labour can actually afford granularity on this - pick some areas of social, economic and public policy, demonstrate the Conservative failure and illustrate how a Labour Government would improve the situation.
For weeks the Ministry of Justice has been pressing to introduce legislation on sentencing intended to ease the pressure on prisons, already full and approaching breaking point. For a government on the ropes it was politically unpalatable, but so was the alternative.
When the issue came to a head, witnesses say Chalk exclaimed: “Pass the bill or start releasing people early. Those are your only choices. Would you please just pick one!” Officials were so staggered by Chalk’s display of temper and concerned by Sunak’s indecision that the story spread to senior civil servants and ministers.
“Alex is one of the few Rishyites left,” said a cabinet colleague. “But even he’s beginning to wonder how long this can go on. No 10 doesn’t like making decisions.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-prime-minister-tories-patience-5gq7kn3q7
Badenoch has not shown that streak in my mind as yet so I am willing to consider her. I don't see Mordant as being anywhere near as 'woke' as some like to claim. She strikes me as being far more of a 'live and let live' sort of politician unemcumbered by the bigotries of too many others in herparty.
And then your job is gone
This is not personal, this is something we must all face, artists very much included
Quite what's disappointing about it, I'll leave up to you.
Normally both the sending and receiving institutions want to take fees off the student, otherwise the sending institution is disincentivised from supporting these programmes. Alternatively you just get a bilateral arrangement between individual institutions that are more limiting. To work the scheme will also depend on roughly equal numbers going both ways, which often doesn't happen.
More in Common polled 39 seats in the blue wall — seats where the Tories beat Labour by between 20 per cent and 51 per cent in 2019. With Labour now polling on average a point ahead of the Conservatives there, half those seats would fall to Sir Keir Starmer on a uniform swing. But the survey found that if one in four people there voted tactically, the Tories would lose 27 of them.
By large margins, voters regard Conservatives as more “uncaring” and “divided” than Labour. While 41 per cent of blue wall voters think the Tories “too right-wing”, only 32 per cent think Labour “too left-wing”.
But I recall around the time of Brexit some academic Remoaner types really lamenting horizon (and I agree) but being much more muted about Erasmus (which they felt was not such a good deal for the UK)
He did a 2-hour set for which we paid 50p and it was wonderful. That was back in the days of subsidised student entertainment - in the same week we had Jam and Madness play on successive nights, also for 50p a ticket.
You tell that to the youngsters today and they don't believe a word of it.
Sadly.
https://nation.cymru/news/union-voting-discrepancy-explained-as-gething-thought-to-be-heading-for-victory/
If only for the lolz and the panic. The Tories deserve to be panicked
Lady Godiva was from Mercia. Maybe she wants to use her as her role model.
JRM probably thinks these Saxon invaders are a bit too modern for his liking. Things haven't been the same since Ambrosius Aurelianus was in charge.
When I were a lad at uni, we went to see Mark Steele, Charlie Chaplin and WS Gilbert live at Aberystwyth Arts Centre for 25p a head because t'uni threatened them all with death if they didn't turn up.
Oh my days. It is the right end for this wretched government
https://twitter.com/hoje_no/status/1769054478462836753
So, with a suitable modification, perhaps Mordaunt has recognized that becoming Prime Minister at the head of a deeply unpopular party is just a chance she has to take.
Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, has backed UK business secretary Kemi Badenoch in taking on what he calls “the woke”.
DeSantis, who is expected to challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, met Badenoch and foreign secretary James Cleverly on a visit to London this week.
Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, has backed UK business secretary Kemi Badenoch in taking on what he calls “the woke”.
DeSantis, who is expected to challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, met Badenoch and foreign secretary James Cleverly on a visit to London this week....
...Some of DeSantis’s views would be considered far outside mainstream UK politics – he recently signed a law to ban abortion in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy, for example.
So-called parental rights legislation passed under his governorship has also led to the removal of hundreds of books from school libraries in the state.
DeSantis insists only books that are “pornographic, violent or inappropriate” have been banned, but some school districts have responded to the new laws by removing books including The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Judy Blume’s Forever from circulation.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/30/ron-desantis-backs-kemi-badenochs-war-on-woke
https://x.com/kreuzberged/status/1768671494249328994?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
@guardian
Revealed: Sunak flown to Leeds for private tour of Frank Hester’s office weeks after £5m donation
It is not obvious to me that the latest problem, a door falling off, is the fault of management.
(That retired Boeing workers in Seattle might say so does not surprise me. In fact, I would be surprised if they did not say something like that.)
When we had that Aristophanes in to give a reading, he paid 5 talents of gold for the privilege. Cash.
(Edit: Pah! I see Malmesburius has out-anciented me.)