If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
If it were a knife, for example... there is a bit of a blind spot in the courts/police/CPS when it comes to stuff like this.
All motorists who have a certain attitude to those tedious externalities?
Twitter is claiming that the law does not recognise an attempted homicide if you use a vehicle. Which, if true, is bloody stupid. A car is clearly a dangerous thing if used with intent, as much as a knife, a hammer or an XL Bully
But Twitter may be wrong: I understand this is not unknown
Good point on XL Bullies - this guy in Newcastle was arrested for murder by dog:
@PolitlcsUK 🚨 NEW: Tory MPs claim 40 letters of no confidence in Rishi Sunak have been submitted - just 13 short of the required 53 for a confidence vote
Senior Tory MP: "They will move against him this week"
We are told this is the Conservative voter's "wish list":
Small but effective government fiscal sense pro business let people get on with their own lives
I've no idea what "Small but Effective Government" means - how small, how effective, define effective, how do you measure whether it's effective or not? Central Government? Local Government?
"Fiscal sense" - in terms of reducing the deficit and debt, I'd agree but that won't be achieved by tax cuts but a mixture of tax rises and spending cuts so which taxes get raised, what gets cut? Are we looking to have the public finances in surplus or are we aiming to start paying back the debt? What about the increased defence spending everyone seems to want to deal with a Russian military threat which looks a shade exaggerated?
"Pro Business"? I'd prefer pro consumer and certainly much more stringent regulation on some of the companies owning our utilities and some of the larger service companies - pro small business, yes, reasonable to a point.
"Let people get on with their lives" - how are people not able to do that? What is it people can't do they'd like to do? Should we, like the Germans, abolish motorway speed limits so people can drive as fast as they like? Regulatory checks on gamblers? Certainly divisive but not perhaps the apocolyptic scenario some would suggest.
Too many things to answer in a post, I simply indicate the direction of travel we need. There are no overnight solutions where we are, it will take at least a decade to get back on our feet.
My ideas on reducing worse-than-useless process, and making government more productive and consumer friendly could be seen as meat for either party.
Yes. We could ask why HMG needs nearly 6 million employees at a time when the real economy needs a bigger workforce. Or why we need to load young people up with loads of debt at university when entering the workforce will serve us all better.
They all they want to make the "difficult decisions" but none of them do.
Nice to know that you don't think teachers in state schools, and health workers, are doing real jobs. Or the armed forces, or the police.
Don't forget all those dreadful diversity and inclusion officers whom the Chancellor has identified as being an important driver of the impending collapse in England's entire system of local government.
Getting rid of them all would've saved 0.02% of the budget of Birmingham City Council. Or 0.00% of that of stricken Thurrock. Transformative sums, I'm sure we'll all agree.
It's post like that that explain why we have a productivity problem. If you were in a factory and had reduced your costs by 0.02% you'd call it a good days work. You'd then go off and look for another 0.02% tomorrow,
A pleasant enough beach. Not quite the Maldives, or Koh Rong Samloem
However, what sets this apart is that right behind me the jungle begins. Actual proper jungle with monkeys and everything
Indeed to get to my thatched bungalow we passed a lagoon and the driver casually said “oh there are caimans in there”
OMG caimans
I’ve always wanted to see one. Along with polar bears and Komodo dragon they are the last massive predator I have not seen that I really want to see
I may have to camp by the lake
Was on a narrow boat once that a caiman went for from underneath. Bit of a racy moment. If you go out at night with a torch, watch out for the pairs of red eyes staring back.
OOOOOOOH
Exciting.
Right I’m having a swim in a rather rough looking Caribbean
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
If it were a knife, for example... there is a bit of a blind spot in the courts/police/CPS when it comes to stuff like this.
All motorists who have a certain attitude to those tedious externalities?
Twitter is claiming that the law does not recognise an attempted homicide if you use a vehicle. Which, if true, is bloody stupid. A car is clearly a dangerous thing if used with intent, as much as a knife, a hammer or an XL Bully
But Twitter may be wrong: I understand this is not unknown
If you repeatedly ram someone with a car you are highly likely to kill them. Just as if you repeatedly smash someone in the head with a claw hammer
What’s the difference?
I you try to kill someone with a hammer and come mightily close and, as you do that, in your frenzy you also smash someone else in the head giving them critical injuries you should not get a jail sentence where you are out within 2 years
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
If it were a knife, for example... there is a bit of a blind spot in the courts/police/CPS when it comes to stuff like this.
All motorists who have a certain attitude to those tedious externalities?
It's not an externality if it's deliberate.
Attempted murder should be prosecuted as such.
Motorists who knowingly pollute the environment not an externality?
No, there's a difference between a secondary effect that you know about and a primary intention.
If the intention is to get from A to B and something else happens as a consequence that's an externality.
If the intention is to attempt to kill someone, then that's not.
It extends beyond deliberate actions though. In no other part of life would negligent or dangerous use of a heavy piece of machinery, that leads to serious injury or death, be treated so lightly by the courts.
It's not part of the "war on motorists", because car occupants are often the victims of such behaviour themselves. Particularly where I grew up.
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
If it were a knife, for example... there is a bit of a blind spot in the courts/police/CPS when it comes to stuff like this.
All motorists who have a certain attitude to those tedious externalities?
Twitter is claiming that the law does not recognise an attempted homicide if you use a vehicle. Which, if true, is bloody stupid. A car is clearly a dangerous thing if used with intent, as much as a knife, a hammer or an XL Bully
But Twitter may be wrong: I understand this is not unknown
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
If it were a knife, for example... there is a bit of a blind spot in the courts/police/CPS when it comes to stuff like this.
All motorists who have a certain attitude to those tedious externalities?
Twitter is claiming that the law does not recognise an attempted homicide if you use a vehicle. Which, if true, is bloody stupid. A car is clearly a dangerous thing if used with intent, as much as a knife, a hammer or an XL Bully
But Twitter may be wrong: I understand this is not unknown
I don’t believe there are anywhere near 40 letters . This looks like desperate hopecasting from a few disgruntled Tory MPs .
With the Tories dropping to 20% in some polls, I can believe they are going to be desperate enough for one final roll of the dice so I do think there will be a move against Rishi at some point before the election (how successful it is remains to be seen)
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
It's a cultural thing. Killing someone with a car doesn't count.
If you repeatedly ram someone with a car you are highly likely to kill them. Just as if you repeatedly smash someone in the head with a claw hammer
What’s the difference?
I you try to kill someone with a hammer and come mightily close and, as you do that, in your frenzy you also smash someone else in the head giving them critical injuries you should not get a jail sentence where you are out within 2 years
Truly bizarre
Yes, watching that video it's hard to understand how that doesn't qualify as attempted murder:
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
If it were a knife, for example... there is a bit of a blind spot in the courts/police/CPS when it comes to stuff like this.
All motorists who have a certain attitude to those tedious externalities?
It's not an externality if it's deliberate.
Attempted murder should be prosecuted as such.
Motorists who knowingly pollute the environment not an externality?
No, there's a difference between a secondary effect that you know about and a primary intention.
If the intention is to get from A to B and something else happens as a consequence that's an externality.
If the intention is to attempt to kill someone, then that's not.
It extends beyond deliberate actions though. In no other part of life would negligent or dangerous use of a heavy piece of machinery, that leads to serious injury or death, be treated so lightly by the courts.
It's not part of the "war on motorists", because car occupants are often the victims of such behaviour themselves. Particularly where I grew up.
The courts take things lightly all the damn time sadly.
I was hospitalised in an assault that shattered my eye socket, broke my nose and could have left me blind or worse and the perpetrator who had a string of past convictions as long as his arm got a six month sentence and would have been out after a couple of months if that.
My home was broken into, I caught the perp red handed, who was arrested (thanks to his getaway vehicle incidentally, I got the reg plate which was the evidence that convicted him). He had prior convictions again as long as his arm and confessed to 19 other burglaries at the hearing ... and was given a suspended sentence. No time served at all.
If you think the courts aren't lenient except when it comes to vehicles, you've just not been paying attention.
If you repeatedly ram someone with a car you are highly likely to kill them. Just as if you repeatedly smash someone in the head with a claw hammer
What’s the difference?
I you try to kill someone with a hammer and come mightily close and, as you do that, in your frenzy you also smash someone else in the head giving them critical injuries you should not get a jail sentence where you are out within 2 years
Truly bizarre
Malice aforethought is what this concept used to be called...
We are told this is the Conservative voter's "wish list":
Small but effective government fiscal sense pro business let people get on with their own lives
I've no idea what "Small but Effective Government" means - how small, how effective, define effective, how do you measure whether it's effective or not? Central Government? Local Government?
"Fiscal sense" - in terms of reducing the deficit and debt, I'd agree but that won't be achieved by tax cuts but a mixture of tax rises and spending cuts so which taxes get raised, what gets cut? Are we looking to have the public finances in surplus or are we aiming to start paying back the debt? What about the increased defence spending everyone seems to want to deal with a Russian military threat which looks a shade exaggerated?
"Pro Business"? I'd prefer pro consumer and certainly much more stringent regulation on some of the companies owning our utilities and some of the larger service companies - pro small business, yes, reasonable to a point.
"Let people get on with their lives" - how are people not able to do that? What is it people can't do they'd like to do? Should we, like the Germans, abolish motorway speed limits so people can drive as fast as they like? Regulatory checks on gamblers? Certainly divisive but not perhaps the apocolyptic scenario some would suggest.
Too many things to answer in a post, I simply indicate the direction of travel we need. There are no overnight solutions where we are, it will take at least a decade to get back on our feet.
My ideas on reducing worse-than-useless process, and making government more productive and consumer friendly could be seen as meat for either party.
Yes. We could ask why HMG needs nearly 6 million employees at a time when the real economy needs a bigger workforce. Or why we need to load young people up with loads of debt at university when entering the workforce will serve us all better.
They all they want to make the "difficult decisions" but none of them do.
Nice to know that you don't think teachers in state schools, and health workers, are doing real jobs. Or the armed forces, or the police.
Don't forget all those dreadful diversity and inclusion officers whom the Chancellor has identified as being an important driver of the impending collapse in England's entire system of local government.
Getting rid of them all would've saved 0.02% of the budget of Birmingham City Council. Or 0.00% of that of stricken Thurrock. Transformative sums, I'm sure we'll all agree.
It's post like that that explain why we have a productivity problem. If you were in a factory and had reduced your costs by 0.02% you'd call it a good days work. You'd then go off and look for another 0.02% tomorrow,
It's also unlikely to be the entire picture. Does the calculation include their pension costs? Does it take into account the cost and impact of their work - awareness campaigns, recruitment delays, training initiatives etc?
I don’t believe there are anywhere near 40 letters . This looks like desperate hopecasting from a few disgruntled Tory MPs .
With the Tories dropping to 20% in some polls, I can believe they are going to be desperate enough for one final roll of the dice so I do think there will be a move against Rishi at some point before the election (how successful it is remains to be seen)
Let the chaos continue...
No, please, nine years is enough already. Let the chaos end.
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
If it were a knife, for example... there is a bit of a blind spot in the courts/police/CPS when it comes to stuff like this.
Also juries. Majority of the population drives, and has probably cut things a bit fine once or twice. They'll think they could be in the dock in the future if they're unlucky.
Penny Mordaunt has built up a £26,000 campaigning war chest from donations since Rishi Sunak became PM, as speculation continues about whether he could be toppled.
@PolitlcsUK 🚨 NEW: Tory MPs claim 40 letters of no confidence in Rishi Sunak have been submitted - just 13 short of the required 53 for a confidence vote
Senior Tory MP: "They will move against him this week"
"I think it could happen this week," said the senior Tory MP to me. "What?" I asked. "They will move against him." Unbelievably, after two bouts of regicide, Conservative MPs are gearing for a third, as soon as this week. Tory MPs are in despair about their lack lustre poll ratings and repeated attempts by Rishi Sunak to grab the initiative (in the past seven months a Conference speech, a King's Speech, an Autumn statement and a Budget have all failed to work). So the big question is what happens next. The MP could see two options: Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee, leads a delegation to No10 to read the riot act. "But I am not sure that will work," the MP told me. The second option is more alarming for Tories: that enough no confidence letters are submitted in Sunak's leadership to past the 53 threshold to trigger a vote of no confidence in his leadership. This latter option is the more likely. Two other Tory MPs told me today that around 40 no confidence letters have been submitted. A former whip told me that "half a dozen" letters were submitted over this weekend. Rebels who want the PM replaced are worried that a 'disordered' no confidence vote will just shore up his position as happened with the 2018 no confidence vote in Theresa May's leadership, when a snap vote was held by Brady before the rebels were ready. What is very clear today is that something changed in the Tory Parliamentary party late last week, in the wake of the defection of Lee Anderson - who was then an Independent - to the Reform UK party, and the row over comments about Diane Abbott by a donor…
@PolitlcsUK 🚨 NEW: Tory MPs claim 40 letters of no confidence in Rishi Sunak have been submitted - just 13 short of the required 53 for a confidence vote
Senior Tory MP: "They will move against him this week"
The thing is, Penny is universally loved by the nation. Starmer is despised. I was listening to the callers on LBC. Could she overturn the polls?
But is she merely a stalking horse for some mad b@stard?
All most people know about Morduant is that she held a sword at the coronation. I cannot think of a single memorable thing she has said, either good or bad. She is a blank page, and on the evidence that is currently available her mind is equally empty.
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
It's a cultural thing. Killing someone with a car doesn't count.
Bollocks.
Accidents happen, if its a tragic accident then that's shit whether it be a private vehicle, a bus, cricket ball, a rugby ball, an ice hockey skate or whatever else that was behind the accident. Life isn't without risk.
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
If it were a knife, for example... there is a bit of a blind spot in the courts/police/CPS when it comes to stuff like this.
All motorists who have a certain attitude to those tedious externalities?
Twitter is claiming that the law does not recognise an attempted homicide if you use a vehicle. Which, if true, is bloody stupid. A car is clearly a dangerous thing if used with intent, as much as a knife, a hammer or an XL Bully
But Twitter may be wrong: I understand this is not unknown
"Let me take you to defeat, or I'll take you to defeat!"
LOL that's an amusing final line.
However the threat is as hollow as when Boris tried the same thing "don't move against me or there'll be an election" didn't work then, why would it work now?
It's nonsense though. Sunak won't call an election any time soon for all the reasons we've rehearsed (but mainly, polls). If he was thinking of it, he wouldn't have ruled May out - which more than anything is what gave this talk legs because it's given it space in which to 'work'.
But if they did move against him, it's questionable whether he'd have the authority to request an election and at the very least would put the Palace in a very difficult position of either being complicit in Sunak's constitutional dodginess or refusing an election more than 4 years into a parliament.
I don't think the Palace would have grounds for refusal if the sitting PM asked for a dissolution. The fact that some of his MPs didn't want one is irrelevant - that must often be the case at dissolutions.
If it was merely that some of his MPs didn't want one, I'd agree. But it wouldn't be that.
The issue is twofold. Firstly, is the PM still entitled to use the full powers of the office if he no longer had the confidence of his party and was in the process of being replaced (or, at the least, if that question was being tested), bearing in mind that he is only PM in the first place because he is leader of the majority party?
And secondly, is it fair to the public to put before them a choice of parties when one of the principal parties is unable to offer a prime ministerial candidate or manifesto due to temporary circumstances?
Obviously, were Sunak to pre-empt any confidence vote then it's game on as normal. But I don't think that would be the case once Brady announced the 15% trigger had been reached. In that situation, if possible, the uncertainty should be allowed to resolve itself first.
@PolitlcsUK 🚨 NEW: Tory MPs claim 40 letters of no confidence in Rishi Sunak have been submitted - just 13 short of the required 53 for a confidence vote
Senior Tory MP: "They will move against him this week"
The thing is, Penny is universally loved by the nation. Starmer is despised. I was listening to the callers on LBC. Could she overturn the polls?
But is she merely a stalking horse for some mad b@stard?
All most people know about Morduant is that she held a sword at the coronation. I cannot think of a single memorable thing she has said, either good or bad. She is a blank page, and on the evidence that is currently available her mind is equally empty.
"I think it could happen this week," said the senior Tory MP to me. "What?" I asked. "They will move against him." Unbelievably, after two bouts of regicide, Conservative MPs are gearing for a third, as soon as this week. Tory MPs are in despair about their lack lustre poll ratings and repeated attempts by Rishi Sunak to grab the initiative (in the past seven months a Conference speech, a King's Speech, an Autumn statement and a Budget have all failed to work). So the big question is what happens next. The MP could see two options: Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee, leads a delegation to No10 to read the riot act. "But I am not sure that will work," the MP told me. The second option is more alarming for Tories: that enough no confidence letters are submitted in Sunak's leadership to past the 53 threshold to trigger a vote of no confidence in his leadership. This latter option is the more likely. Two other Tory MPs told me today that around 40 no confidence letters have been submitted. A former whip told me that "half a dozen" letters were submitted over this weekend. Rebels who want the PM replaced are worried that a 'disordered' no confidence vote will just shore up his position as happened with the 2018 no confidence vote in Theresa May's leadership, when a snap vote was held by Brady before the rebels were ready. What is very clear today is that something changed in the Tory Parliamentary party late last week, in the wake of the defection of Lee Anderson - who was then an Independent - to the Reform UK party, and the row over comments about Diane Abbott by a donor…
Charles should announce a dissolution and fresh elections.
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
If it were a knife, for example... there is a bit of a blind spot in the courts/police/CPS when it comes to stuff like this.
All motorists who have a certain attitude to those tedious externalities?
Twitter is claiming that the law does not recognise an attempted homicide if you use a vehicle. Which, if true, is bloody stupid. A car is clearly a dangerous thing if used with intent, as much as a knife, a hammer or an XL Bully
But Twitter may be wrong: I understand this is not unknown
There is nothing in law, IIRC, that says you can’t commit murder with a car. Or attempt to commit murder.
We are told this is the Conservative voter's "wish list":
Small but effective government fiscal sense pro business let people get on with their own lives
I've no idea what "Small but Effective Government" means - how small, how effective, define effective, how do you measure whether it's effective or not? Central Government? Local Government?
"Fiscal sense" - in terms of reducing the deficit and debt, I'd agree but that won't be achieved by tax cuts but a mixture of tax rises and spending cuts so which taxes get raised, what gets cut? Are we looking to have the public finances in surplus or are we aiming to start paying back the debt? What about the increased defence spending everyone seems to want to deal with a Russian military threat which looks a shade exaggerated?
"Pro Business"? I'd prefer pro consumer and certainly much more stringent regulation on some of the companies owning our utilities and some of the larger service companies - pro small business, yes, reasonable to a point.
"Let people get on with their lives" - how are people not able to do that? What is it people can't do they'd like to do? Should we, like the Germans, abolish motorway speed limits so people can drive as fast as they like? Regulatory checks on gamblers? Certainly divisive but not perhaps the apocolyptic scenario some would suggest.
Too many things to answer in a post, I simply indicate the direction of travel we need. There are no overnight solutions where we are, it will take at least a decade to get back on our feet.
My ideas on reducing worse-than-useless process, and making government more productive and consumer friendly could be seen as meat for either party.
Yes. We could ask why HMG needs nearly 6 million employees at a time when the real economy needs a bigger workforce. Or why we need to load young people up with loads of debt at university when entering the workforce will serve us all better.
They all they want to make the "difficult decisions" but none of them do.
Nice to know that you don't think teachers in state schools, and health workers, are doing real jobs. Or the armed forces, or the police.
Don't forget all those dreadful diversity and inclusion officers whom the Chancellor has identified as being an important driver of the impending collapse in England's entire system of local government.
Getting rid of them all would've saved 0.02% of the budget of Birmingham City Council. Or 0.00% of that of stricken Thurrock. Transformative sums, I'm sure we'll all agree.
It's post like that that explain why we have a productivity problem. If you were in a factory and had reduced your costs by 0.02% you'd call it a good days work. You'd then go off and look for another 0.02% tomorrow,
How much have council budgets been cut in real terms since 2010 - something like 50%? And how much has demand for bottomless money pit services like elderly care and child protection increased over that time?
Birmingham, the largest local authority in western Europe and one of the most diverse, spent a total of something like £140,000 of its budget on D&I, which is the kind of sum that can be more than burnt up in a year shelling out for accommodation and care for a single very disturbed child. It's chicken feed, and many authorities have long since stopped employing anyone in these sorts of posts, if they ever did in the first place.
Efficiency savings are like benefit scroungers - sure you can still find some if you look hard enough, but it doesn't compensate for the sheer scale of genuine burdens that are heaped upon the system. Councils can't efficiency save their way out of circumstances where they're spending three quarters or more of their entire budgets on social care and homeless families, and where the demand keeps growing relentlessly at a pace that outstrips what they receive from Whitehall, or are allowed to raise from their taxpayers. So, first of all the discretionary spending all goes - the libraries, the parks, the arts and community group grants, the road repairs - basically everything that anyone who doesn't need social care provision values from the council - and then, eventually, the council can't keep up with the social care demand and it goes bankrupt anyway.
The less fortunate and the less well managed councils are simply the vanguard of this. All of them, save perhaps for some lower tier authorities in better off areas, are going to fall over in the next few years if the funding system isn't reformed and they're not fed more cash. This is obviously inconvenient to those of us who resent paying tax and just want it to stop, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.
@PolitlcsUK 🚨 NEW: Tory MPs claim 40 letters of no confidence in Rishi Sunak have been submitted - just 13 short of the required 53 for a confidence vote
Senior Tory MP: "They will move against him this week"
The thing is, Penny is universally loved by the nation. Starmer is despised. I was listening to the callers on LBC. Could she overturn the polls?
But is she merely a stalking horse for some mad b@stard?
All most people know about Morduant is that she held a sword at the coronation. I cannot think of a single memorable thing she has said, either good or bad. She is a blank page, and on the evidence that is currently available her mind is equally empty.
"Let me take you to defeat, or I'll take you to defeat!"
LOL that's an amusing final line.
However the threat is as hollow as when Boris tried the same thing "don't move against me or there'll be an election" didn't work then, why would it work now?
It's nonsense though. Sunak won't call an election any time soon for all the reasons we've rehearsed (but mainly, polls). If he was thinking of it, he wouldn't have ruled May out - which more than anything is what gave this talk legs because it's given it space in which to 'work'.
But if they did move against him, it's questionable whether he'd have the authority to request an election and at the very least would put the Palace in a very difficult position of either being complicit in Sunak's constitutional dodginess or refusing an election more than 4 years into a parliament.
I don't think the Palace would have grounds for refusal if the sitting PM asked for a dissolution. The fact that some of his MPs didn't want one is irrelevant - that must often be the case at dissolutions.
If it was merely that some of his MPs didn't want one, I'd agree. But it wouldn't be that.
The issue is twofold. Firstly, is the PM still entitled to use the full powers of the office if he no longer had the confidence of his party and was in the process of being replaced (or, at the least, if that question was being tested), bearing in mind that he is only PM in the first place because he is leader of the majority party?
And secondly, is it fair to the public to put before them a choice of parties when one of the principal parties is unable to offer a prime ministerial candidate or manifesto due to temporary circumstances?
Obviously, were Sunak to pre-empt any confidence vote then it's game on as normal. But I don't think that would be the case once Brady announced the 15% trigger had been reached. In that situation, if possible, the uncertainty should be allowed to resolve itself first.
The circumstances in which a Prime Minister might seek a dissolution are underpinned by two core constitutional principles:
(1)The Prime Minister holds that position by virtue of their ability to command the confidence of the House of Commons and will normally be the accepted leader of the political party that commands the majority of the House of Commons.
(2)The monarch should not be drawn into party politics, and it is the responsibility of those involved in the political process to ensure that remains the case. As the Crown’s principal adviser this responsibility falls particularly on the incumbent Prime Minister.
A return to the pre-2011 status quo ante will also restore the position whereby the Prime Minister, having lost a designated or explicit vote of confidence, can either resign or seek a dissolution, which would usually be granted and lead to an election.
The monarch, by convention, is informed by and acts upon the advice of the Prime Minister so long as the government appears to have the confidence of the House, and the Prime Minister maintains support as the leader of that government.
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
It's a cultural thing. Killing someone with a car doesn't count.
Bollocks.
Accidents happen, if its a tragic accident then that's shit whether it be a private vehicle, a bus, cricket ball, a rugby ball, an ice hockey skate or whatever else that was behind the accident. Life isn't without risk.
If it's deliberate it's murder.
But we've seen this over and over again with motorists killing people and treated incredibly leniently. And it's not unusual for motorists to be aggressive towards other road users. I've had someone try to knock me over.
It shouldn't be this way, but it is, because there's a big cultural lacuna when it comes to the car.
@PolitlcsUK 🚨 NEW: Tory MPs claim 40 letters of no confidence in Rishi Sunak have been submitted - just 13 short of the required 53 for a confidence vote
Senior Tory MP: "They will move against him this week"
The thing is, Penny is universally loved by the nation. Starmer is despised. I was listening to the callers on LBC. Could she overturn the polls?
But is she merely a stalking horse for some mad b@stard?
All most people know about Morduant is that she held a sword at the coronation. I cannot think of a single memorable thing she has said, either good or bad. She is a blank page, and on the evidence that is currently available her mind is equally empty.
He’s going to have to call an election, this simply cannot carry on.
There's a world of difference between shouldn't and can't. The Tory Party will drag this out until next January if it believes that's in the best interests of the Tory Party.
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
If it were a knife, for example... there is a bit of a blind spot in the courts/police/CPS when it comes to stuff like this.
All motorists who have a certain attitude to those tedious externalities?
Twitter is claiming that the law does not recognise an attempted homicide if you use a vehicle. Which, if true, is bloody stupid. A car is clearly a dangerous thing if used with intent, as much as a knife, a hammer or an XL Bully
But Twitter may be wrong: I understand this is not unknown
Twitter is indeed wrong. See this example, from a quick Google -
I suspect Twitter was getting confused by most people who are charged after killing someone while driving being done so for causing death by dangerous / careless driving. But if the car is used as a weapon then murder charges can result.
@Alanbrooke so when ever you would not Tory? How bad would the Tories have to be?
The problem with you lefties is you cannot conceive of anything outside your limited experience. I didnt vote in 2019 becuse I didnt trust BOJO. Last time I voted Tory was for May as I thought she deserved chance, but she fked things up royally. In 2010 I voted against Brown not for Cameron.
Your basic problem is you cant deal with people - and there are more of us - who dont agree with the current failed two party system. People who think Starmer and Sunak are shit are in the majority.
Perhaps if the Tories tried a bit harder they'd be able to win voters like me (probably not me but like me): homeowners, higher rate taxpayers.
But they don't want our votes.
There are lots of conservative votes out there, but the conservatives will have to go back to being conservative first.
Small but effective government fiscal sense pro business let people get on with their own lives
Where is the space for small government, given the colossal numbers of old people (who all expect inflation busting pensions and many of whom also have complex health and care needs,) sick and disabled people (a bloc growing constantly as the healthcare system falls apart,) and working poor (those on low and middle incomes who are still broke and reliant on benefits, because of dreadful pay, astronomical housing costs, or both?)
There is no such space. You can have items 2, 3 and quite a lot of 4, although we're unlikely to conquer the crippling national obesity problem without some nannying. But 1 is dead as a doornail. The big state is here to stay, what's at issue is whether anyone can be found who is willing to admit it, rather than pretending that we could have low taxes if only we were prepared to be cruel enough to the poor.
Yes. The small government idea collapses as soon as the proponent is asked to clarify how even a slightly smaller state will be fixed. £100 billion is less than 5% of GDP, so it would be a small but promising start towards a conservative state but I don't know of anyone who could both find that sort of saving in state managed expenditure - even over a 5-10 year programme - and at the same time win an election.
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
It's a cultural thing. Killing someone with a car doesn't count.
Bollocks.
Accidents happen, if its a tragic accident then that's shit whether it be a private vehicle, a bus, cricket ball, a rugby ball, an ice hockey skate or whatever else that was behind the accident. Life isn't without risk.
If it's deliberate it's murder.
But we've seen this over and over again with motorists killing people and treated incredibly leniently. And it's not unusual for motorists to be aggressive towards other road users. I've had someone try to knock me over.
It shouldn't be this way, but it is, because there's a big cultural lacuna when it comes to the car.
People are treated incredibly leniently for all kinds of killings.
And are you comparing like for like? Do you mean killings with intent, in which case it's murder, or accidents in which case compare like for like.
How much time behind bars did Sean Abbott get for killing Phillip Hughes?
If you use a vehicle as a weapon, or cause death by dangerous driving, it should be an automatic life ban.
Indeed
Also he did this
“Mistry also collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction, causing serious injuries to the front passenger of the car. They were taken by ambulance to Milton Keynes university hospital.”
He nearly killed TWO people, and one of them was an attempted murder
He will be out within 2 years with that ludicrously lenient sentence. I hope the Crown appeals and he gets ten years
One for the legal chaps - why wasn’t he charged with attempted murder?
It's a cultural thing. Killing someone with a car doesn't count.
Bollocks.
Accidents happen, if its a tragic accident then that's shit whether it be a private vehicle, a bus, cricket ball, a rugby ball, an ice hockey skate or whatever else that was behind the accident. Life isn't without risk.
If it's deliberate it's murder.
Just did some googling. The penalty for causing death by dangerous driving is 14 years to life. For murder, penalty is life but with a minimum term of at least 15 years. So not much difference in practice.
We are told this is the Conservative voter's "wish list":
Small but effective government fiscal sense pro business let people get on with their own lives
I've no idea what "Small but Effective Government" means - how small, how effective, define effective, how do you measure whether it's effective or not? Central Government? Local Government?
"Fiscal sense" - in terms of reducing the deficit and debt, I'd agree but that won't be achieved by tax cuts but a mixture of tax rises and spending cuts so which taxes get raised, what gets cut? Are we looking to have the public finances in surplus or are we aiming to start paying back the debt? What about the increased defence spending everyone seems to want to deal with a Russian military threat which looks a shade exaggerated?
"Pro Business"? I'd prefer pro consumer and certainly much more stringent regulation on some of the companies owning our utilities and some of the larger service companies - pro small business, yes, reasonable to a point.
"Let people get on with their lives" - how are people not able to do that? What is it people can't do they'd like to do? Should we, like the Germans, abolish motorway speed limits so people can drive as fast as they like? Regulatory checks on gamblers? Certainly divisive but not perhaps the apocolyptic scenario some would suggest.
Too many things to answer in a post, I simply indicate the direction of travel we need. There are no overnight solutions where we are, it will take at least a decade to get back on our feet.
My ideas on reducing worse-than-useless process, and making government more productive and consumer friendly could be seen as meat for either party.
Yes. We could ask why HMG needs nearly 6 million employees at a time when the real economy needs a bigger workforce. Or why we need to load young people up with loads of debt at university when entering the workforce will serve us all better.
They all they want to make the "difficult decisions" but none of them do.
Nice to know that you don't think teachers in state schools, and health workers, are doing real jobs. Or the armed forces, or the police.
Don't forget all those dreadful diversity and inclusion officers whom the Chancellor has identified as being an important driver of the impending collapse in England's entire system of local government.
Getting rid of them all would've saved 0.02% of the budget of Birmingham City Council. Or 0.00% of that of stricken Thurrock. Transformative sums, I'm sure we'll all agree.
It's post like that that explain why we have a productivity problem. If you were in a factory and had reduced your costs by 0.02% you'd call it a good days work. You'd then go off and look for another 0.02% tomorrow,
That's dependent on having a vision and values to map out where you are going and how you go around getting there.
We are told this is the Conservative voter's "wish list":
Small but effective government fiscal sense pro business let people get on with their own lives
I've no idea what "Small but Effective Government" means - how small, how effective, define effective, how do you measure whether it's effective or not? Central Government? Local Government?
"Fiscal sense" - in terms of reducing the deficit and debt, I'd agree but that won't be achieved by tax cuts but a mixture of tax rises and spending cuts so which taxes get raised, what gets cut? Are we looking to have the public finances in surplus or are we aiming to start paying back the debt? What about the increased defence spending everyone seems to want to deal with a Russian military threat which looks a shade exaggerated?
"Pro Business"? I'd prefer pro consumer and certainly much more stringent regulation on some of the companies owning our utilities and some of the larger service companies - pro small business, yes, reasonable to a point.
"Let people get on with their lives" - how are people not able to do that? What is it people can't do they'd like to do? Should we, like the Germans, abolish motorway speed limits so people can drive as fast as they like? Regulatory checks on gamblers? Certainly divisive but not perhaps the apocolyptic scenario some would suggest.
Too many things to answer in a post, I simply indicate the direction of travel we need. There are no overnight solutions where we are, it will take at least a decade to get back on our feet.
My ideas on reducing worse-than-useless process, and making government more productive and consumer friendly could be seen as meat for either party.
Yes. We could ask why HMG needs nearly 6 million employees at a time when the real economy needs a bigger workforce. Or why we need to load young people up with loads of debt at university when entering the workforce will serve us all better.
They all they want to make the "difficult decisions" but none of them do.
Nice to know that you don't think teachers in state schools, and health workers, are doing real jobs. Or the armed forces, or the police.
Don't forget all those dreadful diversity and inclusion officers whom the Chancellor has identified as being an important driver of the impending collapse in England's entire system of local government.
Getting rid of them all would've saved 0.02% of the budget of Birmingham City Council. Or 0.00% of that of stricken Thurrock. Transformative sums, I'm sure we'll all agree.
It's post like that that explain why we have a productivity problem. If you were in a factory and had reduced your costs by 0.02% you'd call it a good days work. You'd then go off and look for another 0.02% tomorrow,
That's dependent on having a vision and values to map out where you are going and how you go around getting there.
Rishi Sunak ordered the RAF to send a helicopter 210 miles from Northolt to his home in Yorkshire yesterday, so he could fly 145 miles to Coventry this morning, just to make a seven-minute speech. This is why he's in a spiral; it's the constant refusal to listen, learn or change.
I wonder what will happen if the powers that be manage to bankrupt Trump. Will his supporters rally round and get even more fired up or will they turn away.
Already turning away.
There is a suggestion that he has found some other appeal but, failing that, I think he has until the 25th to come up with the bond or Trump Tower is likely to be seized by the state of New York in partial payment of his fine. At which point the rest of the dominoes could fall very fast.
The danger for Trump is that he ends up defaulting on a loan payment, in which case... phewy... it could all come tumbling very quickly indeed. Because - in all probability - there will be cross default clauses - default on anything, and all the loans get called at once.
Now, my gut is that there is probably plenty of equity across the Trump group. But he probably needs to sell something big (and unencumbered) fast.
If Trump Tower is seized that is going to breach almost every banking covenant he has which makes him very vulnerable.
The Tory Party will drag this out until next January if it believes that's in the best interests of the Tory Party.
It isn't. They won't.
There was a sound argument, as articulated by many on here and elsewhere, for going to the country in May before the situation deteriorates further. Unless Sunak does a 180 degree U-turn this week, that ain't happening, and that likely means this all drags on at least until the Autumn.
Assuming that the situation does get even worse by September then do they get the agony over with, or stall until the last possible moment in the hope of a black swan (and to give the numerous chopees more time to look for alternative employment?) There's some evidence to suggest they're going for November, but I don't think January can be ruled out.
We are told this is the Conservative voter's "wish list":
Small but effective government fiscal sense pro business let people get on with their own lives
I've no idea what "Small but Effective Government" means - how small, how effective, define effective, how do you measure whether it's effective or not? Central Government? Local Government?
"Fiscal sense" - in terms of reducing the deficit and debt, I'd agree but that won't be achieved by tax cuts but a mixture of tax rises and spending cuts so which taxes get raised, what gets cut? Are we looking to have the public finances in surplus or are we aiming to start paying back the debt? What about the increased defence spending everyone seems to want to deal with a Russian military threat which looks a shade exaggerated?
"Pro Business"? I'd prefer pro consumer and certainly much more stringent regulation on some of the companies owning our utilities and some of the larger service companies - pro small business, yes, reasonable to a point.
"Let people get on with their lives" - how are people not able to do that? What is it people can't do they'd like to do? Should we, like the Germans, abolish motorway speed limits so people can drive as fast as they like? Regulatory checks on gamblers? Certainly divisive but not perhaps the apocolyptic scenario some would suggest.
Too many things to answer in a post, I simply indicate the direction of travel we need. There are no overnight solutions where we are, it will take at least a decade to get back on our feet.
My ideas on reducing worse-than-useless process, and making government more productive and consumer friendly could be seen as meat for either party.
Yes. We could ask why HMG needs nearly 6 million employees at a time when the real economy needs a bigger workforce. Or why we need to load young people up with loads of debt at university when entering the workforce will serve us all better.
They all they want to make the "difficult decisions" but none of them do.
Nice to know that you don't think teachers in state schools, and health workers, are doing real jobs. Or the armed forces, or the police.
Don't forget all those dreadful diversity and inclusion officers whom the Chancellor has identified as being an important driver of the impending collapse in England's entire system of local government.
Getting rid of them all would've saved 0.02% of the budget of Birmingham City Council. Or 0.00% of that of stricken Thurrock. Transformative sums, I'm sure we'll all agree.
It's post like that that explain why we have a productivity problem. If you were in a factory and had reduced your costs by 0.02% you'd call it a good days work. You'd then go off and look for another 0.02% tomorrow,
How much have council budgets been cut in real terms since 2010 - something like 50%? And how much has demand for bottomless money pit services like elderly care and child protection increased over that time?
Birmingham, the largest local authority in western Europe and one of the most diverse, spent a total of something like £140,000 of its budget on D&I, which is the kind of sum that can be more than burnt up in a year shelling out for accommodation and care for a single very disturbed child. It's chicken feed, and many authorities have long since stopped employing anyone in these sorts of posts, if they ever did in the first place.
Efficiency savings are like benefit scroungers - sure you can still find some if you look hard enough, but it doesn't compensate for the sheer scale of genuine burdens that are heaped upon the system. Councils can't efficiency save their way out of circumstances where they're spending three quarters or more of their entire budgets on social care and homeless families, and where the demand keeps growing relentlessly at a pace that outstrips what they receive from Whitehall, or are allowed to raise from their taxpayers. So, first of all the discretionary spending all goes - the libraries, the parks, the arts and community group grants, the road repairs - basically everything that anyone who doesn't need social care provision values from the council - and then, eventually, the council can't keep up with the social care demand and it goes bankrupt anyway.
The less fortunate and the less well managed councils are simply the vanguard of this. All of them, save perhaps for some lower tier authorities in better off areas, are going to fall over in the next few years if the funding system isn't reformed and they're not fed more cash. This is obviously inconvenient to those of us who resent paying tax and just want it to stop, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.
I’m sure funding is an issue and labour will do something about it but why should the taxpayer as a whole bail out councils like Brum, Nottingham and Woking whose financial problems are largely of their own making ?,
If you repeatedly ram someone with a car you are highly likely to kill them. Just as if you repeatedly smash someone in the head with a claw hammer
What’s the difference?
I you try to kill someone with a hammer and come mightily close and, as you do that, in your frenzy you also smash someone else in the head giving them critical injuries you should not get a jail sentence where you are out within 2 years
Truly bizarre
As strange to me as the sentence for attempted murder being shorter than one for actual murder; the accused did the same thing, with the same intent, why should our one play a part?
Someone throws an a axe at someone’s head with the intent off killing them but misses, another person does the same to someone else and hits, but the victim survives, a third person throws an axe at another person, hits and kills them… all three throwers are as evil as each other, but luck decides who goes to prison for longest
When things couldn’t be worse, they can — as that man in the big white shirt once sang — only get better. Which means, in a way, that you can do whatever you like. Take Penny Mordaunt, and this idea that the Conservatives should bung her into Downing Street as a last-minute, pre-election PM. A good idea? Obviously not. Utterly bonkers. And yet, would it actually make the actual election go any worse? Hmm. Perhaps not.
Park the Conservatives generally, though, and think only of Rishi Sunak. He too is at rock bottom. He too could not be doing worse. And so, given that he can now do almost whatever he wants, one thought is obsessing me. Which is why on earth he doesn’t.
Elon Musk has called for a "red wave" this November, for the most authoritarian Republican Party in history. People need to start learning that "libertarian" in the US means "I'm extremely right wing but too embarrassed to admit associating with the crazies in polite society."
That’s quite a blinkered view. What of the online censorship embraced by the Democrat Party for example? There’s extremism infecting both parties in the US right now. And not all Republican candidates for congress will be authoritarian or crazy. It’s a little unhinged if I might say so to presume that anyone voting for a Republican candidate this year is automatically an extremist.
the online censorship that Elon Musk got all excited about turned out to be a dick pic from Hunter Biden. How is that extremism?
Off-off topic: Years ago, I observed that almost anyone can learn to flip a coin to give biased results. And I have often wondered whether cheaters had taken advantage of that.
(A somewhat better randomizing process -- in my opinion -- is to stand a coin on edge and spin it.)
If you repeatedly ram someone with a car you are highly likely to kill them. Just as if you repeatedly smash someone in the head with a claw hammer
What’s the difference?
I you try to kill someone with a hammer and come mightily close and, as you do that, in your frenzy you also smash someone else in the head giving them critical injuries you should not get a jail sentence where you are out within 2 years
Truly bizarre
Yes, watching that video it's hard to understand how that doesn't qualify as attempted murder:
Sentence feels too short; GBH with intent is a very serious offence; but attempted murder is, of all crimes, the toughest to prove as (unlike murder) requires proof of an intent to kill - which would be unlikely to succeed here.
Rishi Sunak ordered the RAF to send a helicopter 210 miles from Northolt to his home in Yorkshire yesterday, so he could fly 145 miles to Coventry this morning, just to make a seven-minute speech. This is why he's in a spiral; it's the constant refusal to listen, learn or change.
This speaks to a wider point. It isn't just Sunak. It's the wider Conservative Party who are guilty of that. The public keep telling them services are in the toilet. Yet they keep trumpeting tax cuts. The last one failed. As did the one before that. So. The plan is for another before an election. It's an ideology, imbued with a hazy folk memory of Thatcher. The political equivalent of "Computer says No!"
@PolitlcsUK 🚨 NEW: Tory MPs claim 40 letters of no confidence in Rishi Sunak have been submitted - just 13 short of the required 53 for a confidence vote
Senior Tory MP: "They will move against him this week"
The thing is, Penny is universally loved by the nation. Starmer is despised. I was listening to the callers on LBC. Could she overturn the polls?
But is she merely a stalking horse for some mad b@stard?
All most people know about Morduant is that she held a sword at the coronation. I cannot think of a single memorable thing she has said, either good or bad. She is a blank page, and on the evidence that is currently available her mind is equally empty.
My God, that's dreadful! Also inappropriate to use images of the King in a political context. Suggests that her communication skills are pretty much non-existent and her judgement is questionable to say the least.
Rishi Sunak ordered the RAF to send a helicopter 210 miles from Northolt to his home in Yorkshire yesterday, so he could fly 145 miles to Coventry this morning, just to make a seven-minute speech. This is why he's in a spiral; it's the constant refusal to listen, learn or change.
I assume after Sunak no other PM will ever dare take a helicopter. No?
Rishi Sunak ordered the RAF to send a helicopter 210 miles from Northolt to his home in Yorkshire yesterday, so he could fly 145 miles to Coventry this morning, just to make a seven-minute speech. This is why he's in a spiral; it's the constant refusal to listen, learn or change.
This speaks to a wider point. It isn't just Sunak. It's the wider Conservative Party who are guilty of that. The public keep telling them services are in the toilet. Yet they keep trumpeting tax cuts. The last one failed. As did the one before that. So. The plan is for another before an election. It's an ideology, imbued with a hazy folk memory of Thatcher. The political equivalent of "Computer says No!"
If you repeatedly ram someone with a car you are highly likely to kill them. Just as if you repeatedly smash someone in the head with a claw hammer
What’s the difference?
I you try to kill someone with a hammer and come mightily close and, as you do that, in your frenzy you also smash someone else in the head giving them critical injuries you should not get a jail sentence where you are out within 2 years
Truly bizarre
As strange to me as the sentence for attempted murder being shorter than one for actual murder; the accused did the same thing, with the same intent, why should our one play a part?
Someone throws an a axe at someone’s head with the intent off killing them but misses, another person does the same to someone else and hits, but the victim survives, a third person throws an axe at another person, hits and kills them… all three throwers are as evil as each other, but luck decides who goes to prison for longest
Because in fact sentencing is partly based on consequences. It is not rational, and, IMHO, it is increasing. While not rational, it is extremely understandable.
The high point of this is the fairly new offence of 'causing death by careless driving'. Careless driving is the stuff that all drivers have done, it (virtually) never involves malign intent about doing damage to people, and can involve misreading or failing to spot a sign in a strange place. You can get a long prison sentence for it.
We are told this is the Conservative voter's "wish list":
Small but effective government fiscal sense pro business let people get on with their own lives
I've no idea what "Small but Effective Government" means - how small, how effective, define effective, how do you measure whether it's effective or not? Central Government? Local Government?
"Fiscal sense" - in terms of reducing the deficit and debt, I'd agree but that won't be achieved by tax cuts but a mixture of tax rises and spending cuts so which taxes get raised, what gets cut? Are we looking to have the public finances in surplus or are we aiming to start paying back the debt? What about the increased defence spending everyone seems to want to deal with a Russian military threat which looks a shade exaggerated?
"Pro Business"? I'd prefer pro consumer and certainly much more stringent regulation on some of the companies owning our utilities and some of the larger service companies - pro small business, yes, reasonable to a point.
"Let people get on with their lives" - how are people not able to do that? What is it people can't do they'd like to do? Should we, like the Germans, abolish motorway speed limits so people can drive as fast as they like? Regulatory checks on gamblers? Certainly divisive but not perhaps the apocolyptic scenario some would suggest.
Too many things to answer in a post, I simply indicate the direction of travel we need. There are no overnight solutions where we are, it will take at least a decade to get back on our feet.
My ideas on reducing worse-than-useless process, and making government more productive and consumer friendly could be seen as meat for either party.
Yes. We could ask why HMG needs nearly 6 million employees at a time when the real economy needs a bigger workforce. Or why we need to load young people up with loads of debt at university when entering the workforce will serve us all better.
They all they want to make the "difficult decisions" but none of them do.
Nice to know that you don't think teachers in state schools, and health workers, are doing real jobs. Or the armed forces, or the police.
Don't forget all those dreadful diversity and inclusion officers whom the Chancellor has identified as being an important driver of the impending collapse in England's entire system of local government.
Getting rid of them all would've saved 0.02% of the budget of Birmingham City Council. Or 0.00% of that of stricken Thurrock. Transformative sums, I'm sure we'll all agree.
It's post like that that explain why we have a productivity problem. If you were in a factory and had reduced your costs by 0.02% you'd call it a good days work. You'd then go off and look for another 0.02% tomorrow,
How much have council budgets been cut in real terms since 2010 - something like 50%? And how much has demand for bottomless money pit services like elderly care and child protection increased over that time?
Birmingham, the largest local authority in western Europe and one of the most diverse, spent a total of something like £140,000 of its budget on D&I, which is the kind of sum that can be more than burnt up in a year shelling out for accommodation and care for a single very disturbed child. It's chicken feed, and many authorities have long since stopped employing anyone in these sorts of posts, if they ever did in the first place.
Efficiency savings are like benefit scroungers - sure you can still find some if you look hard enough, but it doesn't compensate for the sheer scale of genuine burdens that are heaped upon the system. Councils can't efficiency save their way out of circumstances where they're spending three quarters or more of their entire budgets on social care and homeless families, and where the demand keeps growing relentlessly at a pace that outstrips what they receive from Whitehall, or are allowed to raise from their taxpayers. So, first of all the discretionary spending all goes - the libraries, the parks, the arts and community group grants, the road repairs - basically everything that anyone who doesn't need social care provision values from the council - and then, eventually, the council can't keep up with the social care demand and it goes bankrupt anyway.
The less fortunate and the less well managed councils are simply the vanguard of this. All of them, save perhaps for some lower tier authorities in better off areas, are going to fall over in the next few years if the funding system isn't reformed and they're not fed more cash. This is obviously inconvenient to those of us who resent paying tax and just want it to stop, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.
I’m sure funding is an issue and labour will do something about it but why should the taxpayer as a whole bail out councils like Brum, Nottingham and Woking whose financial problems are largely of their own making ?,
In principle, yes, but in practice the scale and timeframe blur that messily.
How far should people moving to Brum/Nottingham/Thurrock/Woking be on the hook for decisions taken before they moved there? Should voters who elected bad councils be able to escape the consequences of their actions by moving elsewhere? What about councils like mine? Nobody thinks they have been dumb, it's just they have been mashed by the combination of increasing demands and insufficient tax base.
And the mechanisms that work in private enterprise (you go bust and if there's still something about your business, someone takes you over, and if there isn't you won't be missed) don't really apply to local government.
I dont know what the palace are playing at. Just release a close up video of kate talking to the camera and put the rumours to bed.
That is indeed a very good point.
Not really. It doesn't matter what the rumour mill is doing.
People believe all kinds of batshit crazy stuff online. Kate is already dead and they're doing a Royal Weekend at Bernie's, the moon landings were faked, Covid vaccines cause BA pilot deaths, Trump won the last election, Putin has a justification for his special military operation, Rishi Sunak should be Prime Minister.
Posit any strange thing online and someone will agree with it, no matter how farcical.
Interesting quick scan, 679ner, pointer and Sandy (the latter who I think actually is in Labour Party despite being one of the most culturally right wing PBers) desperately pouring cold water on Sunak’s removal and replaced by the blank sheet “Mrs Moore” Mourdant.
Correct me if this sudden about shift I think has happened isn’t true - It’s Labour now terrified of this Black Swan swap out, and desperate to keep Sunak as Tory leader on General Election day, whereas Sunak’s usual defenders, having digested latest polls, have gone quiet? 🤐
I dont know what the palace are playing at. Just release a close up video of kate talking to the camera and put the rumours to bed.
That is indeed a very good point.
Not really. It doesn't matter what the rumour mill is doing.
People believe all kinds of batshit crazy stuff online. Kate is already dead and they're doing a Royal Weekend at Bernie's, the moon landings were faked, Covid vaccines cause BA pilot deaths, Trump won the last election, Putin has a justification for his special military operation, Rishi Sunak should be Prime Minister.
Posit any strange thing online and someone will agree with it, no matter how farcical.
I dont know what the palace are playing at. Just release a close up video of kate talking to the camera and put the rumours to bed.
That is indeed a very good point.
Not really. It doesn't matter what the rumour mill is doing.
People believe all kinds of batshit crazy stuff online. Kate is already dead and they're doing a Royal Weekend at Bernie's, the moon landings were faked, Covid vaccines cause BA pilot deaths, Trump won the last election, Putin has a justification for his special military operation, Rishi Sunak should be Prime Minister.
Posit any strange thing online and someone will agree with it, no matter how farcical.
They should just ignore any rumours.
Yes I get all that. But how hard would it be for her just to do a short interview / photo-op, or make a statement to the effect that she's still recuperating?
Tbh, I don't care that much - the monarchy seem to be working hard to bring about their end, which is fine by me.
So Kate's not ditched William for Harry then which was my theory.
It would be more interesting if she'd ditched baldy for Meghan.
I think it's around series 5,6 or 7 in which a heretofore straight woman is discovered to be gay or bi due to a romance with a new character. It's up there with bringing a character in from another series after a crossover episode. I'm just waiting for the Mirror Universe episode.
Interesting quick scan, 679ner, pointer and Sandy (the latter who I think actually is in Labour Party despite being one of the most culturally right wing PBers) desperately pouring cold water on Sunak’s removal and replaced by the blank sheet “Mrs Moore” Mourdant.
Correct me if this sudden about shift I think has happened isn’t true - It’s Labour now terrified of this Black Swan swap out, and desperate to keep Sunak as Tory leader on General Election day, whereas Sunak’s usual defenders, having digested latest polls, have gone quiet? 🤐
The consistent 20 point leads having ticked up a notch. Terrified isn't the correct adjective.
We are told this is the Conservative voter's "wish list":
Small but effective government fiscal sense pro business let people get on with their own lives
I've no idea what "Small but Effective Government" means - how small, how effective, define effective, how do you measure whether it's effective or not? Central Government? Local Government?
"Fiscal sense" - in terms of reducing the deficit and debt, I'd agree but that won't be achieved by tax cuts but a mixture of tax rises and spending cuts so which taxes get raised, what gets cut? Are we looking to have the public finances in surplus or are we aiming to start paying back the debt? What about the increased defence spending everyone seems to want to deal with a Russian military threat which looks a shade exaggerated?
"Pro Business"? I'd prefer pro consumer and certainly much more stringent regulation on some of the companies owning our utilities and some of the larger service companies - pro small business, yes, reasonable to a point.
"Let people get on with their lives" - how are people not able to do that? What is it people can't do they'd like to do? Should we, like the Germans, abolish motorway speed limits so people can drive as fast as they like? Regulatory checks on gamblers? Certainly divisive but not perhaps the apocolyptic scenario some would suggest.
Too many things to answer in a post, I simply indicate the direction of travel we need. There are no overnight solutions where we are, it will take at least a decade to get back on our feet.
My ideas on reducing worse-than-useless process, and making government more productive and consumer friendly could be seen as meat for either party.
Yes. We could ask why HMG needs nearly 6 million employees at a time when the real economy needs a bigger workforce. Or why we need to load young people up with loads of debt at university when entering the workforce will serve us all better.
They all they want to make the "difficult decisions" but none of them do.
Nice to know that you don't think teachers in state schools, and health workers, are doing real jobs. Or the armed forces, or the police.
Don't forget all those dreadful diversity and inclusion officers whom the Chancellor has identified as being an important driver of the impending collapse in England's entire system of local government.
Getting rid of them all would've saved 0.02% of the budget of Birmingham City Council. Or 0.00% of that of stricken Thurrock. Transformative sums, I'm sure we'll all agree.
It's post like that that explain why we have a productivity problem. If you were in a factory and had reduced your costs by 0.02% you'd call it a good days work. You'd then go off and look for another 0.02% tomorrow,
How much have council budgets been cut in real terms since 2010 - something like 50%? And how much has demand for bottomless money pit services like elderly care and child protection increased over that time?
Birmingham, the largest local authority in western Europe and one of the most diverse, spent a total of something like £140,000 of its budget on D&I, which is the kind of sum that can be more than burnt up in a year shelling out for accommodation and care for a single very disturbed child. It's chicken feed, and many authorities have long since stopped employing anyone in these sorts of posts, if they ever did in the first place.
Efficiency savings are like benefit scroungers - sure you can still find some if you look hard enough, but it doesn't compensate for the sheer scale of genuine burdens that are heaped upon the system. Councils can't efficiency save their way out of circumstances where they're spending three quarters or more of their entire budgets on social care and homeless families, and where the demand keeps growing relentlessly at a pace that outstrips what they receive from Whitehall, or are allowed to raise from their taxpayers. So, first of all the discretionary spending all goes - the libraries, the parks, the arts and community group grants, the road repairs - basically everything that anyone who doesn't need social care provision values from the council - and then, eventually, the council can't keep up with the social care demand and it goes bankrupt anyway.
The less fortunate and the less well managed councils are simply the vanguard of this. All of them, save perhaps for some lower tier authorities in better off areas, are going to fall over in the next few years if the funding system isn't reformed and they're not fed more cash. This is obviously inconvenient to those of us who resent paying tax and just want it to stop, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.
I’m sure funding is an issue and labour will do something about it but why should the taxpayer as a whole bail out councils like Brum, Nottingham and Woking whose financial problems are largely of their own making ?,
Woking is a very extreme case where the Government arguably bears responsibility on two fronts: firstly, lack of sufficient oversight; and secondly, that fact that the tiny authority will never in a million years be able to repay debts on that scale. That being the case, must the good people of Woking manage without having their bins collected, their homeless children housed and their frail elderly cared for for the rest of time, whilst such things continue as normal half a mile away over the border? Common sense must assert itself in such situations. The bailout was inevitable.
More broadly, much of the fault - even in poorly managed authorities - lies with Parliament anyway, for failing to provide adequate funding for core services itself, and forbidding councils from raising adequate revenue through council tax themselves either (save through these daft, impossible to win local plebiscites, which funnily enough the Treasury doesn't call each time it wants to put taxes up, I wonder why?)
That's not to say that local taxpayers should be absolved of all consequences for the behaviour of their elected representatives, because that creates moral hazard, which is what you're objecting to. The best way to achieve the required balance over this is to reform local government finance, through a combination of Whitehall providing adequate subsidy to address the scale of demand for stretched services like child protection, and more devolution of the tax base. Thus the council won't, through no fault of its own, have to close or flog off all its leisure facilities to fund elderly care, but if it has access to adequate funding yet still gets into debt through poor and inefficient management, councillors will then be made to choose whether to cull libraries and youth centres to cover the costs, or hike taxes to do it.
Well Princess Catherine is due back after Easter and Easter is less than two weeks away so either she'll come appear after Easter or she won't but one way or another this will be coming to a head soon...
Interesting quick scan, 679ner, pointer and Sandy (the latter who I think actually is in Labour Party despite being one of the most culturally right wing PBers) desperately pouring cold water on Sunak’s removal and replaced by the blank sheet “Mrs Moore” Mourdant.
Correct me if this sudden about shift I think has happened isn’t true - It’s Labour now terrified of this Black Swan swap out, and desperate to keep Sunak as Tory leader on General Election day, whereas Sunak’s usual defenders, having digested latest polls, have gone quiet? 🤐
Add to that, yesterday’s newspaper front pages were all about Sunak’s big fight back today? Did you notice a big fight back today.
If anything, seeing him so tired and looking unwell, makes you wonder how much fight is left.
And tonight’s front pages have a different tone “PM Mourdant for election? Not so daft as you might think” says both Isabel Hard an and Sean O Grady.
Ruthless Tories shooting Labours fox again, if this swap out denies them a majority. 😈
But then again, Labour not getting a majority will be down to their own lack of Tory ruthlessness in sticking with Corbyn and allowing him to take them down to 200 seats, just too much to get back in one go. 😇
I dont know what the palace are playing at. Just release a close up video of kate talking to the camera and put the rumours to bed.
That is indeed a very good point.
Not really. It doesn't matter what the rumour mill is doing.
People believe all kinds of batshit crazy stuff online. Kate is already dead and they're doing a Royal Weekend at Bernie's, the moon landings were faked, Covid vaccines cause BA pilot deaths, Trump won the last election, Putin has a justification for his special military operation, Rishi Sunak should be Prime Minister.
Posit any strange thing online and someone will agree with it, no matter how farcical.
I dont know what the palace are playing at. Just release a close up video of kate talking to the camera and put the rumours to bed.
That is indeed a very good point.
Not really. It doesn't matter what the rumour mill is doing.
People believe all kinds of batshit crazy stuff online. Kate is already dead and they're doing a Royal Weekend at Bernie's, the moon landings were faked, Covid vaccines cause BA pilot deaths, Trump won the last election, Putin has a justification for his special military operation, Rishi Sunak should be Prime Minister.
Posit any strange thing online and someone will agree with it, no matter how farcical.
They should just ignore any rumours.
Reminder that Nostradarums supposedly predicted H&M would become King and Queen 😜
— Sunak allies aware that May 2 locals are a huge flashpoint, but they hope Susan Hall can get the PM out of jail by defeating Sadiq Khan against the odds in London
— that’d buy him time to get a Rwanda flight off and make it to autumn, supporters say…
Satire, surely?
Khan is hardly shooting the lights out, but I have never heard a single person in London reference Susan Hall in my life. And the little I've seen on here suggests she is crap.
Londoners will head out and check the Labour box, or else protest for Lib Dems / Reform / Green.
If she gets half of Khan's vote as per the latest yougov poll I'll be impressed.
Khan is the blandest mayor possible. In the Hollywood film set in the U.K. he is perfect as “The London Major” who gets one line at the big meeting and is never mentioned again.
His thing is being non-toxic and Labour. He hasn’t set the place on fire - in either sense. Which will see him home easily. That and a small amount of name recognition.
The other candidates are utterly unknown.
Also has a strong cv of delivery, whether or not PB Tories think these should all be credited to him, they came on his watch:
We are told this is the Conservative voter's "wish list":
Small but effective government fiscal sense pro business let people get on with their own lives
I've no idea what "Small but Effective Government" means - how small, how effective, define effective, how do you measure whether it's effective or not? Central Government? Local Government?
"Fiscal sense" - in terms of reducing the deficit and debt, I'd agree but that won't be achieved by tax cuts but a mixture of tax rises and spending cuts so which taxes get raised, what gets cut? Are we looking to have the public finances in surplus or are we aiming to start paying back the debt? What about the increased defence spending everyone seems to want to deal with a Russian military threat which looks a shade exaggerated?
"Pro Business"? I'd prefer pro consumer and certainly much more stringent regulation on some of the companies owning our utilities and some of the larger service companies - pro small business, yes, reasonable to a point.
"Let people get on with their lives" - how are people not able to do that? What is it people can't do they'd like to do? Should we, like the Germans, abolish motorway speed limits so people can drive as fast as they like? Regulatory checks on gamblers? Certainly divisive but not perhaps the apocolyptic scenario some would suggest.
Too many things to answer in a post, I simply indicate the direction of travel we need. There are no overnight solutions where we are, it will take at least a decade to get back on our feet.
My ideas on reducing worse-than-useless process, and making government more productive and consumer friendly could be seen as meat for either party.
Yes. We could ask why HMG needs nearly 6 million employees at a time when the real economy needs a bigger workforce. Or why we need to load young people up with loads of debt at university when entering the workforce will serve us all better.
They all they want to make the "difficult decisions" but none of them do.
Nice to know that you don't think teachers in state schools, and health workers, are doing real jobs. Or the armed forces, or the police.
Don't forget all those dreadful diversity and inclusion officers whom the Chancellor has identified as being an important driver of the impending collapse in England's entire system of local government.
Getting rid of them all would've saved 0.02% of the budget of Birmingham City Council. Or 0.00% of that of stricken Thurrock. Transformative sums, I'm sure we'll all agree.
It's post like that that explain why we have a productivity problem. If you were in a factory and had reduced your costs by 0.02% you'd call it a good days work. You'd then go off and look for another 0.02% tomorrow,
How much have council budgets been cut in real terms since 2010 - something like 50%? And how much has demand for bottomless money pit services like elderly care and child protection increased over that time?
Birmingham, the largest local authority in western Europe and one of the most diverse, spent a total of something like £140,000 of its budget on D&I, which is the kind of sum that can be more than burnt up in a year shelling out for accommodation and care for a single very disturbed child. It's chicken feed, and many authorities have long since stopped employing anyone in these sorts of posts, if they ever did in the first place.
Efficiency savings are like benefit scroungers - sure you can still find some if you look hard enough, but it doesn't compensate for the sheer scale of genuine burdens that are heaped upon the system. Councils can't efficiency save their way out of circumstances where they're spending three quarters or more of their entire budgets on social care and homeless families, and where the demand keeps growing relentlessly at a pace that outstrips what they receive from Whitehall, or are allowed to raise from their taxpayers. So, first of all the discretionary spending all goes - the libraries, the parks, the arts and community group grants, the road repairs - basically everything that anyone who doesn't need social care provision values from the council - and then, eventually, the council can't keep up with the social care demand and it goes bankrupt anyway.
The less fortunate and the less well managed councils are simply the vanguard of this. All of them, save perhaps for some lower tier authorities in better off areas, are going to fall over in the next few years if the funding system isn't reformed and they're not fed more cash. This is obviously inconvenient to those of us who resent paying tax and just want it to stop, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.
I’m sure funding is an issue and labour will do something about it but why should the taxpayer as a whole bail out councils like Brum, Nottingham and Woking whose financial problems are largely of their own making ?,
Just wait until when the North is asked to bail out the water users of the affluent South East when Thames Water goes under. (sorry for the water-related puns)
Comments
But is she merely a stalking horse for some mad b@stard?
OOOOOOOH
Exciting.
Right I’m having a swim in a rather rough looking Caribbean
As normal.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg3q11j9qn7o
It's not part of the "war on motorists", because car occupants are often the victims of such behaviour themselves. Particularly where I grew up.
Only an insane fanatic would contrast driving a vehicle with smoking.
Let the chaos continue...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/18/man-jailed-ramming-motorcyclist-milton-keynes-bridge-extreme-road-rage
I was hospitalised in an assault that shattered my eye socket, broke my nose and could have left me blind or worse and the perpetrator who had a string of past convictions as long as his arm got a six month sentence and would have been out after a couple of months if that.
My home was broken into, I caught the perp red handed, who was arrested (thanks to his getaway vehicle incidentally, I got the reg plate which was the evidence that convicted him). He had prior convictions again as long as his arm and confessed to 19 other burglaries at the hearing ... and was given a suspended sentence. No time served at all.
If you think the courts aren't lenient except when it comes to vehicles, you've just not been paying attention.
Ben Riley-Smith
@benrileysmith
·
21m
NEW
Penny Mordaunt has built up a £26,000 campaigning war chest from donations since Rishi Sunak became PM, as speculation continues about whether he could be toppled.
My analysis for
@GBNEWS
"I think it could happen this week," said the senior Tory MP to me. "What?" I asked. "They will move against him." Unbelievably, after two bouts of regicide, Conservative MPs are gearing for a third, as soon as this week.
Tory MPs are in despair about their lack lustre poll ratings and repeated attempts by Rishi Sunak to grab the initiative (in the past seven months a Conference speech, a King's Speech, an Autumn statement and a Budget have all failed to work).
So the big question is what happens next. The MP could see two options: Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee, leads a delegation to No10 to read the riot act. "But I am not sure that will work," the MP told me.
The second option is more alarming for Tories: that enough no confidence letters are submitted in Sunak's leadership to past the 53 threshold to trigger a vote of no confidence in his leadership.
This latter option is the more likely. Two other Tory MPs told me today that around 40 no confidence letters have been submitted. A former whip told me that "half a dozen" letters were submitted over this weekend.
Rebels who want the PM replaced are worried that a 'disordered' no confidence vote will just shore up his position as happened with the 2018 no confidence vote in Theresa May's leadership, when a snap vote was held by Brady before the rebels were ready.
What is very clear today is that something changed in the Tory Parliamentary party late last week, in the wake of the defection of Lee Anderson - who was then an Independent - to the Reform UK party, and the row over comments about Diane Abbott by a donor…
Accidents happen, if its a tragic accident then that's shit whether it be a private vehicle, a bus, cricket ball, a rugby ball, an ice hockey skate or whatever else that was behind the accident. Life isn't without risk.
If it's deliberate it's murder.
The issue is twofold. Firstly, is the PM still entitled to use the full powers of the office if he no longer had the confidence of his party and was in the process of being replaced (or, at the least, if that question was being tested), bearing in mind that he is only PM in the first place because he is leader of the majority party?
And secondly, is it fair to the public to put before them a choice of parties when one of the principal parties is unable to offer a prime ministerial candidate or manifesto due to temporary circumstances?
Obviously, were Sunak to pre-empt any confidence vote then it's game on as normal. But I don't think that would be the case once Brady announced the 15% trigger had been reached. In that situation, if possible, the uncertainty should be allowed to resolve itself first.
Michelin hails ‘cultural dynamism’ as 52 French restaurants earn their first stars
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/mar/18/michelin-hails-cultural-dynamism-as-52-french-restaurants-earn-their-first-stars
His popularity would sky rocket.
Google found this
https://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/crime/total-of-five-arrested-on-suspicion-of-attempted-murder-after-car-hit-two-pedestrians-in-northampton-4353926
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/m6-toll-attempted-murder-arrest-28545698
https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/24019103.dorchester-teenager-held-suspicion-attempted-murder/
Birmingham, the largest local authority in western Europe and one of the most diverse, spent a total of something like £140,000 of its budget on D&I, which is the kind of sum that can be more than burnt up in a year shelling out for accommodation and care for a single very disturbed child. It's chicken feed, and many authorities have long since stopped employing anyone in these sorts of posts, if they ever did in the first place.
Efficiency savings are like benefit scroungers - sure you can still find some if you look hard enough, but it doesn't compensate for the sheer scale of genuine burdens that are heaped upon the system. Councils can't efficiency save their way out of circumstances where they're spending three quarters or more of their entire budgets on social care and homeless families, and where the demand keeps growing relentlessly at a pace that outstrips what they receive from Whitehall, or are allowed to raise from their taxpayers. So, first of all the discretionary spending all goes - the libraries, the parks, the arts and community group grants, the road repairs - basically everything that anyone who doesn't need social care provision values from the council - and then, eventually, the council can't keep up with the social care demand and it goes bankrupt anyway.
The less fortunate and the less well managed councils are simply the vanguard of this. All of them, save perhaps for some lower tier authorities in better off areas, are going to fall over in the next few years if the funding system isn't reformed and they're not fed more cash. This is obviously inconvenient to those of us who resent paying tax and just want it to stop, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BAPt5DmfGzs
(1)The Prime Minister holds that position by virtue of their ability to command the confidence of the House of Commons and will normally be the accepted leader of the political party that commands the majority of the House of Commons.
(2)The monarch should not be drawn into party politics, and it is the responsibility of those involved in the political process to ensure that remains the case. As the Crown’s principal adviser this responsibility falls particularly on the incumbent Prime Minister.
A return to the pre-2011 status quo ante will also restore the position whereby the Prime Minister, having lost a designated or explicit vote of confidence, can either resign or seek a dissolution, which would usually be granted and lead to an election.
The monarch, by convention, is informed by and acts upon the advice of the Prime Minister so long as the government appears to have the confidence of the House, and the Prime Minister maintains support as the leader of that government.
[My bold]
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5802/ldselect/ldconst/100/10005.htm
It shouldn't be this way, but it is, because there's a big cultural lacuna when it comes to the car.
https://www.cheshire.police.uk/news/cheshire/news/articles/2024/1/woman-found-guilty-of-murder-after-driving-her-car-at-fiance-in-rode-heath/
I suspect Twitter was getting confused by most people who are charged after killing someone while driving being done so for causing death by dangerous / careless driving. But if the car is used as a weapon then murder charges can result.
And are you comparing like for like? Do you mean killings with intent, in which case it's murder, or accidents in which case compare like for like.
How much time behind bars did Sean Abbott get for killing Phillip Hughes?
For murder, penalty is life but with a minimum term of at least 15 years.
So not much difference in practice.
Sunk is nihilistic.
The reason the Tories are thrashing around looking for a leader is because, with Rishi Sunak in charge, they don't have one.
He doesn't even have a meme.
https://twitter.com/fleetstreetfox/status/1769846242878881872/photo/1
Rishi Sunak ordered the RAF to send a helicopter 210 miles from Northolt to his home in Yorkshire yesterday, so he could fly 145 miles to Coventry this morning, just to make a seven-minute speech. This is why he's in a spiral; it's the constant refusal to listen, learn or change.
Assuming that the situation does get even worse by September then do they get the agony over with, or stall until the last possible moment in the hope of a black swan (and to give the numerous chopees more time to look for alternative employment?) There's some evidence to suggest they're going for November, but I don't think January can be ruled out.
https://x.com/MailOnline/status/1769820408818110941?s=20
Someone throws an a axe at someone’s head with the intent off killing them but misses, another person does the same to someone else and hits, but the victim survives, a third person throws an axe at another person, hits and kills them… all three throwers are as evil as each other, but luck decides who goes to prison for longest
Park the Conservatives generally, though, and think only of Rishi Sunak. He too is at rock bottom. He too could not be doing worse. And so, given that he can now do almost whatever he wants, one thought is obsessing me. Which is why on earth he doesn’t.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/time-for-sunak-to-unleash-his-inner-tech-bro-x589gqtgm
https://x.com/mikecosgrove/status/1769848176675066029?s=61
https://x.com/vaximakram/status/1769840721526194644?s=20
(A somewhat better randomizing process -- in my opinion -- is to stand a coin on edge and spin it.)
https://x.com/JamesMelville/status/1769844433711706228?s=20
It isn't just Sunak. It's the wider Conservative Party who are guilty of that.
The public keep telling them services are in the toilet.
Yet they keep trumpeting tax cuts. The last one failed. As did the one before that.
So. The plan is for another before an election.
It's an ideology, imbued with a hazy folk memory of Thatcher. The political equivalent of "Computer says No!"
The high point of this is the fairly new offence of 'causing death by careless driving'. Careless driving is the stuff that all drivers have done, it (virtually) never involves malign intent about doing damage to people, and can involve misreading or failing to spot a sign in a strange place. You can get a long prison sentence for it.
How far should people moving to Brum/Nottingham/Thurrock/Woking be on the hook for decisions taken before they moved there? Should voters who elected bad councils be able to escape the consequences of their actions by moving elsewhere? What about councils like mine? Nobody thinks they have been dumb, it's just they have been mashed by the combination of increasing demands and insufficient tax base.
And the mechanisms that work in private enterprise (you go bust and if there's still something about your business, someone takes you over, and if there isn't you won't be missed) don't really apply to local government.
I don't have an answer, but this isn't it.
https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/sarah-rose-hanbury-is-she-ladies-man-prince-williams-rumoured-mistress-is-her-daughter-iris-williams-child-13749468.html
UPDATE: Nobody on here believes it’s them (it is…) so the conspiracy theories have increased.
https://x.com/piersmorgan/status/1769835759584805203?s=20
Which means she’s dead and ****** did it
People believe all kinds of batshit crazy stuff online. Kate is already dead and they're doing a Royal Weekend at Bernie's, the moon landings were faked, Covid vaccines cause BA pilot deaths, Trump won the last election, Putin has a justification for his special military operation, Rishi Sunak should be Prime Minister.
Posit any strange thing online and someone will agree with it, no matter how farcical.
They should just ignore any rumours.
Correct me if this sudden about shift I think has happened isn’t true - It’s Labour now terrified of this Black Swan swap out, and desperate to keep Sunak as Tory leader on General Election day, whereas Sunak’s usual defenders, having digested latest polls, have gone quiet? 🤐
Tbh, I don't care that much - the monarchy seem to be working hard to bring about their end, which is fine by me.
Terrified isn't the correct adjective.
More broadly, much of the fault - even in poorly managed authorities - lies with Parliament anyway, for failing to provide adequate funding for core services itself, and forbidding councils from raising adequate revenue through council tax themselves either (save through these daft, impossible to win local plebiscites, which funnily enough the Treasury doesn't call each time it wants to put taxes up, I wonder why?)
That's not to say that local taxpayers should be absolved of all consequences for the behaviour of their elected representatives, because that creates moral hazard, which is what you're objecting to. The best way to achieve the required balance over this is to reform local government finance, through a combination of Whitehall providing adequate subsidy to address the scale of demand for stretched services like child protection, and more devolution of the tax base. Thus the council won't, through no fault of its own, have to close or flog off all its leisure facilities to fund elderly care, but if it has access to adequate funding yet still gets into debt through poor and inefficient management, councillors will then be made to choose whether to cull libraries and youth centres to cover the costs, or hike taxes to do it.
If anything, seeing him so tired and looking unwell, makes you wonder how much fight is left.
And tonight’s front pages have a different tone “PM Mourdant for election? Not so daft as you might think” says both Isabel Hard an and Sean O Grady.
Ruthless Tories shooting Labours fox again, if this swap out denies them a majority. 😈
But then again, Labour not getting a majority will be down to their own lack of Tory ruthlessness in sticking with Corbyn and allowing him to take them down to 200 seats, just too much to get back in one go. 😇
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