One more point - on the emigration of affluent Brits - in the last year two of my friends have confirmed their departure: one to Provence, the other to Thailand. It really is happening. People are fucking off, and these are all prosperous net tax positive people for the UK, one in his 40s with decades of good earning ahead
Britain is driving away the affluent Brits (let alone the non doms) and replacing them with Nigerian nurses with fake qualifications and Bangladeshi students that murder their dependant wives
Are you having a bad day? Do you have a hangover?
No, why? I'm in a jolly good mood. It's a beautiful spring day, I have some enjoyable work to do. I'm just being honest about the State of the Nation, and the increasing appeal of foreign parts to more mobile Brits (and non doms). Britain is becoming quite dystopian (the weather doesn't help). People will not pay high taxes to live in dystopia
Nor is this a partisan thing. Much of the blame for this lies with the Tories, they have been economically inept, and pathetically leftwing - while saying naff rightwing things, and it was them that turned on the migration taps to an insane 1.4 MILLION in two years. I despise them for it and I hope they are destroyed in the election. Fuck em
Spain has had large-scale immigration...mostly white.
Is it the fraudulent Nigerians and homicidal Bangladeshis you don't like or, when it comes down to it, the proles, horrible smelly proles of whatever colour? As a check, imagine being surrounded by born and bred lilywhite Londoners, with so much Thames blood flowing in their veins that they've rarely left their city of birth, all saying "Gorblimey mate" and how much they admire the Queen Mother and the Kray Twins. Less scary or about the same?
Much less scary, or, rather, much less "alien". I miss the old white cockney London. It was still very noticeable when I was first here, indeed it prevailed until the late 1990s. The demographic stats show this
There is a tipping point, to my mind, where a great city goes from being fascinatingly diverse and vibrant, with lots of different communities but still one big welcoming host community - in London's case, white Brits (and I liked that vibrant, diverse London) - and then you cross a line where the host community is no longer the majority and something profound changes. Whte Brits are in a minority in London now. I find this regrettable, I am sure the French might feel the same about Paris or the Nigerians about Lagos or the Japanese about Tokyo or the Papua New Guineans about Port Moresby, so it's not reacism, it is preferring your own people in your own city, which is entirely human, like preferring your own family in your own home
And yes, maybe I am just a grumpy old man, or maybe I just like sun too much. But I do think I'm off, I've kinda already left, spending more than half the year abroad as it is, so it won't be a dramatic wrench, I've basically already done it
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
WRT to Johnson, I will give him credit for ending Brexit as an issue.
That is his one and only achievement.
Brexit no longer an issue? Do you come here often?
The next election won’t be fought over Brexit and it’s highly unlikely that the one after that will either.
It’s not always said out loud, but the next election is being fought over the Tories’ record, of which Brexit is the major plank.
Meh, I am not sure I agree. I think Brexit as an issue is settled, the public just perceive problems in society at the moment but Brexit hasn't directly caused them. This will change.
The Tories have made a very large error tying themselves to Brexit. This will only work as long as long as it is popular (which it isn't) and people aren't connecting the dots (which they will).
Labour will throw this at them when the Tories go into opposition.
One more point - on the emigration of affluent Brits - in the last year two of my friends have confirmed their departure: one to Provence, the other to Thailand. It really is happening. People are fucking off, and these are all prosperous net tax positive people for the UK, one in his 40s with decades of good earning ahead
Britain is driving away the affluent Brits (let alone the non doms) and replacing them with Nigerian nurses with fake qualifications and Bangladeshi students that murder their dependant wives
Are you having a bad day? Do you have a hangover?
No, why? I'm in a jolly good mood. It's a beautiful spring day, I have some enjoyable work to do. I'm just being honest about the State of the Nation, and the increasing appeal of foreign parts to more mobile Brits (and non doms). Britain is becoming quite dystopian (the weather doesn't help). People will not pay high taxes to live in dystopia
Nor is this a partisan thing. Much of the blame for this lies with the Tories, they have been economically inept, and pathetically leftwing - while saying naff rightwing things, and it was them that turned on the migration taps to an insane 1.4 MILLION in two years. I despise them for it and I hope they are destroyed in the election. Fuck em
Spain has had large-scale immigration...mostly white.
Is it the fraudulent Nigerians and homicidal Bangladeshis you don't like or, when it comes down to it, the proles, horrible smelly proles of whatever colour? As a check, imagine being surrounded by born and bred lilywhite Londoners, with so much Thames blood flowing in their veins that they've rarely left their city of birth, all saying "Gorblimey mate" and how much they admire the Queen Mother and the Kray Twins. Less scary or about the same?
Much less scary, or, rather, much less "alien". I miss the old white cockney London. It was still very noticeable when I was first here, indeed it prevailed until the late 1990s. The demographic stats show this
There is a tipping point, to my mind, where a great city goes from being fascinatingly diverse and vibrant, with lots of different communities but still one big welcoming host community - in London's case, white Brits (and I liked that vibrant, diverse London) - and then you cross a line where the host community is no longer the majority and something profound changes. Whte Brits are in a minority in London now. I find this regrettable, I am sure the French might feel the same about Paris or the Nigerians about Lagos or the Japanese about Tokyo or the Papua New Guineans about Port Moresby, so it's not reacism, it is preferring your own people in your own city, which is entirely human, like preferring your own family in your own home
And yes, maybe I am just a grumpy old man, or maybe I just like sun too much. But I do think I'm off, I've kinda already left, spending more than half the year abroad as it is, so it won't be a dramatic wrench, I've basically already done it
President Biden has nearly erased Donald J. Trump’s early polling advantage, amid signs that the Democratic base has begun to coalesce behind the president despite lingering doubts about the direction of the country, the economy and his age, according to a new survey by The New York Times and Siena College.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
I do wonder if the Tories will become more popular in London again if and when Labour gets into government.
President Biden has nearly erased Donald J. Trump’s early polling advantage, amid signs that the Democratic base has begun to coalesce behind the president despite lingering doubts about the direction of the country, the economy and his age, according to a new survey by The New York Times and Siena College.
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are now virtually tied
ny times
I said a few weeks back that I believed the polling advantage would be wiped out before the elections come.
I maintain my view that if Trump couldn't win last time, he isn't going to win this time. He hasn't gained support?
President Biden has nearly erased Donald J. Trump’s early polling advantage, amid signs that the Democratic base has begun to coalesce behind the president despite lingering doubts about the direction of the country, the economy and his age, according to a new survey by The New York Times and Siena College.
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are now virtually tied
ny times
NY Times must have said that through gritted teeth, given how they might not be pro-Trump but have been relentlessly anti-Biden.
"“We are just stating the truth fully and plainly, but we are also doing that in a way that is unemotional. We are not anyone’s opposition and we’re not anyone’s lap dog,” Times publisher A. G. Sulzberger said as part of an interview with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism published Monday.
“We are going to continue to report fully and fairly, not just on Donald Trump but also on President Joe Biden. He is a historically unpopular incumbent and the oldest man to ever hold this office. We’ve reported on both of those realities extensively, and the White House has been extremely upset about it.”
One more point - on the emigration of affluent Brits - in the last year two of my friends have confirmed their departure: one to Provence, the other to Thailand. It really is happening. People are fucking off, and these are all prosperous net tax positive people for the UK, one in his 40s with decades of good earning ahead
Britain is driving away the affluent Brits (let alone the non doms) and replacing them with Nigerian nurses with fake qualifications and Bangladeshi students that murder their dependant wives
Are you having a bad day? Do you have a hangover?
No, why? I'm in a jolly good mood. It's a beautiful spring day, I have some enjoyable work to do. I'm just being honest about the State of the Nation, and the increasing appeal of foreign parts to more mobile Brits (and non doms). Britain is becoming quite dystopian (the weather doesn't help). People will not pay high taxes to live in dystopia
Nor is this a partisan thing. Much of the blame for this lies with the Tories, they have been economically inept, and pathetically leftwing - while saying naff rightwing things, and it was them that turned on the migration taps to an insane 1.4 MILLION in two years. I despise them for it and I hope they are destroyed in the election. Fuck em
Spain has had large-scale immigration...mostly white.
Is it the fraudulent Nigerians and homicidal Bangladeshis you don't like or, when it comes down to it, the proles, horrible smelly proles of whatever colour? As a check, imagine being surrounded by born and bred lilywhite Londoners, with so much Thames blood flowing in their veins that they've rarely left their city of birth, all saying "Gorblimey mate" and how much they admire the Queen Mother and the Kray Twins. Less scary or about the same?
Much less scary, or, rather, much less "alien". I miss the old white cockney London. It was still very noticeable when I was first here, indeed it prevailed until the late 1990s. The demographic stats show this
There is a tipping point, to my mind, where a great city goes from being fascinatingly diverse and vibrant, with lots of different communities but still one big welcoming host community - in London's case, white Brits (and I liked that vibrant, diverse London) - and then you cross a line where the host community is no longer the majority and something profound changes. Whte Brits are in a minority in London now. I find this regrettable, I am sure the French might feel the same about Paris or the Nigerians about Lagos or the Japanese about Tokyo or the Papua New Guineans about Port Moresby, so it's not reacism, it is preferring your own people in your own city, which is entirely human, like preferring your own family in your own home
And yes, maybe I am just a grumpy old man, or maybe I just like sun too much. But I do think I'm off, I've kinda already left, spending more than half the year abroad as it is, so it won't be a dramatic wrench, I've basically already done it
I find little to disagree with in Campbell's manifesto.
It's a bit motherhood and apple pie- how will you achieve these ends, what are the actual tradeoffs? But yes- it's what an optimistic right-of-centre manifesto for a great city should look like. See also, Andy Street.
The trouble London Conservatives have is that their support has shrunk to the point where it's dominated by pessimism and people who object to London as an idea. And then you get Susan Hall.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
I’ll vote for Khan with no great enthusiasm, but simply because the prospect of Hall winning is horrific.
I found Blackie’s attack on Khan’s TfL fare freeze a bit of an eyebrow raiser. I can’t really see the political logic of it.
President Biden has nearly erased Donald J. Trump’s early polling advantage, amid signs that the Democratic base has begun to coalesce behind the president despite lingering doubts about the direction of the country, the economy and his age, according to a new survey by The New York Times and Siena College.
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are now virtually tied
ny times
I said a few weeks back that I believed the polling advantage would be wiped out before the elections come.
I maintain my view that if Trump couldn't win last time, he isn't going to win this time. He hasn't gained support?
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
I’d love to know who put up the £10k deposit for Binface, someone wealthy but with a sense of humour. I think he’d get my vote!
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
I do wonder if the Tories will become more popular in London again if and when Labour gets into government.
It doesn't necessarily follow - Livingstone won in 2004 as a Labour candidate and many think Labour lost the election by choosing him again in 2008.
Assuming Khan doesn't run again in 2028 (I just wonder if he'll jump ship if there is a by-election in a safe London seat), who would be the Labour candidate? Who would be the Conservative candidate?
The Redfield & Wilton GE poll for London had Labour ahead 51-23 which, while huge, is only a 6% swing on 2019. The truth is London is basically a centre-left city and the demographics mean there simply aren't enough older Conservative voters in the outer surburbs. Any Conservative has got to be able to reach across the political spectrum (Boris did but he was helped by fighting Ken Livingstone twice).
On the topic of London, British-born white people are likely in fact still in the majority in London, but as discussed previoisly here o PB,, due to the poorly phrased and made explicit terms of the census, many British people of Continental European ancestry are not putting their nationality as White British., thnking that means only Anglo-Saxon, Celtic etc. This should be made clear on the Census, as British has in fact been a civic rather than ethnic category since 1707.
President Biden has nearly erased Donald J. Trump’s early polling advantage, amid signs that the Democratic base has begun to coalesce behind the president despite lingering doubts about the direction of the country, the economy and his age, according to a new survey by The New York Times and Siena College.
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are now virtually tied
ny times
I said a few weeks back that I believed the polling advantage would be wiped out before the elections come.
I maintain my view that if Trump couldn't win last time, he isn't going to win this time. He hasn't gained support?
I'll try and find it, but there was a recent report by the acknowledged best in the business on sub-set polling in the US - which came to the conclusion there was no such switch happening.
One more point - on the emigration of affluent Brits - in the last year two of my friends have confirmed their departure: one to Provence, the other to Thailand. It really is happening. People are fucking off, and these are all prosperous net tax positive people for the UK, one in his 40s with decades of good earning ahead
Britain is driving away the affluent Brits (let alone the non doms) and replacing them with Nigerian nurses with fake qualifications and Bangladeshi students that murder their dependant wives
Are you having a bad day? Do you have a hangover?
No, why? I'm in a jolly good mood. It's a beautiful spring day, I have some enjoyable work to do. I'm just being honest about the State of the Nation, and the increasing appeal of foreign parts to more mobile Brits (and non doms). Britain is becoming quite dystopian (the weather doesn't help). People will not pay high taxes to live in dystopia
Nor is this a partisan thing. Much of the blame for this lies with the Tories, they have been economically inept, and pathetically leftwing - while saying naff rightwing things, and it was them that turned on the migration taps to an insane 1.4 MILLION in two years. I despise them for it and I hope they are destroyed in the election. Fuck em
Spain has had large-scale immigration...mostly white.
Is it the fraudulent Nigerians and homicidal Bangladeshis you don't like or, when it comes down to it, the proles, horrible smelly proles of whatever colour? As a check, imagine being surrounded by born and bred lilywhite Londoners, with so much Thames blood flowing in their veins that they've rarely left their city of birth, all saying "Gorblimey mate" and how much they admire the Queen Mother and the Kray Twins. Less scary or about the same?
Much less scary, or, rather, much less "alien". I miss the old white cockney London. It was still very noticeable when I was first here, indeed it prevailed until the late 1990s. The demographic stats show this
There is a tipping point, to my mind, where a great city goes from being fascinatingly diverse and vibrant, with lots of different communities but still one big welcoming host community - in London's case, white Brits (and I liked that vibrant, diverse London) - and then you cross a line where the host community is no longer the majority and something profound changes. Whte Brits are in a minority in London now. I find this regrettable, I am sure the French might feel the same about Paris or the Nigerians about Lagos or the Japanese about Tokyo or the Papua New Guineans about Port Moresby, so it's not reacism, it is preferring your own people in your own city, which is entirely human, like preferring your own family in your own home
And yes, maybe I am just a grumpy old man, or maybe I just like sun too much. But I do think I'm off, I've kinda already left, spending more than half the year abroad as it is, so it won't be a dramatic wrench, I've basically already done it
Another Leaver quits.
No patriotism some people.
Like Nick Clegg, you mean?
I don't think he voted Leave.
No, he solemnly promised us an in/out EU vote in the election of 2010 and then reacted like a scalded cat when we actually had one, and said it was a terrible idea, and then when we had one and voted Out he tried to get it overturned, he tried to cancel democracy, and then when he failed to destroy British democracy he fucked off to California to earn $2m for Facebook, aka EVIL INCORPORATED. That's yer Lib Dems. That's you
I find little to disagree with in Campbell's manifesto.
It's a bit motherhood and apple pie- how will you achieve these ends, what are the actual tradeoffs? But yes- it's what an optimistic right-of-centre manifesto for a great city should look like. See also, Andy Street.
The trouble London Conservatives have is that their support has shrunk to the point where it's dominated by pessimism and people who object to London as an idea. And then you get Susan Hall.
I think the problem the Tories have at the moment with Khan specifically is that their remaining support base just cannot help itself in saying something about Islam and making that the problem.
A more liberal Johnson type character would be able to attack Khan on his record but Hall isn't really very good at that. Ironically I wonder if Saun Bailey might be doing better this time around.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
I’d love to know who put up the £10k deposit for Binface, someone wealthy but with a sense of humour. I think he’d get my vote!
I find little to disagree with in Campbell's manifesto.
It's a bit motherhood and apple pie- how will you achieve these ends, what are the actual tradeoffs? But yes- it's what an optimistic right-of-centre manifesto for a great city should look like. See also, Andy Street.
The trouble London Conservatives have is that their support has shrunk to the point where it's dominated by pessimism and people who object to London as an idea. And then you get Susan Hall.
I think the problem the Tories have at the moment with Khan specifically is that their remaining support base just cannot help itself in saying something about Islam and making that the problem.
A more liberal Johnson type character would be able to attack Khan on his record but Hall isn't really very good at that. Ironically I wonder if Saun Bailey might be doing better this time around.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
I’ll vote for Khan with no great enthusiasm, but simply because the prospect of Hall winning is horrific.
I found Blackie’s attack on Khan’s TfL fare freeze a bit of an eyebrow raiser. I can’t really see the political logic of it.
There have been reductions in bus mileage and some routes have been cut. It isn't all about the tube (which has much less impact south of the river such as in Kingston and Sutton) but about buses and trains as well. However, the argument for continued investment and no further cuts to bus routes gets lost in the fares frozen angle.
The other side of this is approximately £160 million of revenue for TfL is lost through fare evasion which is endemic at some stations and on some bus routes. If one in every six journeys is being made fraudulently you'd argue, I think, spending more on catching fare dodgers might be a more popular policy move.
I find little to disagree with in Campbell's manifesto.
It's a bit motherhood and apple pie- how will you achieve these ends, what are the actual tradeoffs? But yes- it's what an optimistic right-of-centre manifesto for a great city should look like. See also, Andy Street.
The trouble London Conservatives have is that their support has shrunk to the point where it's dominated by pessimism and people who object to London as an idea. And then you get Susan Hall.
I think the problem the Tories have at the moment with Khan specifically is that their remaining support base just cannot help itself in saying something about Islam and making that the problem.
A more liberal Johnson type character would be able to attack Khan on his record but Hall isn't really very good at that. Ironically I wonder if Saun Bailey might be doing better this time around.
Bailey was toppled by Partygate.
I was going to say that. I meant if he hadn't been a moron but then maybe he wouldn't have won anyway.
Ah, so the German conference was shut down after Salman Abu Sitta, an activist who wrote an essay that ‘expressed understanding” for the October 7th attack on Israel, appeared via video link having been banned from entering Germany. He is the uncle of the Dr. Sitta who was also arrested.
Hamas, in Germany as in the UK, is a proscribed terrorist organisation, and Salman Abu Sitta has a history of supporting Hamas and “making anti-Semitic and violence-glorifying remarks”. He is banned from “political activity” in Germany.
0-Expert in just over 3 hrs, remarkable performance figs even by PB standards.
So it's banning relatives of those who say things you don't like now. Good job the IDF wasn't involved or Dr Sitta might have had had his transport rocketed.
Should be worse on the Tory MPs who knew him well and chose him as leader with the fairly predictable result of the party collapsing and massive damage created for the country.
Hmmm… that’s a take I suppose. The party collapse happened more or less as a result of him being deposed and nearly happened prior to his ascension.
But if you look at why the Conservatives were in so much trouble (Brexit and the failure of the Conservatives to pass their leader's deal), the 2019 near-collapse has Boris's fingerprints all over it. He doesn't get credit for solving a problem he helped create.
As for Conservative MPs who fell for him, do we mean chumps like these three?
Hope they were never put in charge of anything important- their judgement is clearly terrible.
😹 Is this forum really going to fixate on Brexit again when we look to be days and possibly only hours from Western forces engaging Iran in the battlefield?
Maybe war with Iran saves the Conservative Party. Vote The War Act 2024 through Parliament suspending elections, and crack on with a Government of all the talents including Reform MP Anderson, Lord Farage, Lord Tice, Lord Fox and Lord Yaxley-Lennon.
I suppose on the plus side the government can pass an Act confirming that we won.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
I’d love to know who put up the £10k deposit for Binface, someone wealthy but with a sense of humour. I think he’d get my vote!
Lots of small donations I think.
Ah cool.
It was rather amusing to see him get a BBC London news slot yesterday to launch his manifesto, thanks to the rules around broadcaster impartiality.
There have been reductions in bus mileage and some routes have been cut. It isn't all about the tube (which has much less impact south of the river such as in Kingston and Sutton) but about buses and trains as well. However, the argument for continued investment and no further cuts to bus routes gets lost in the fares frozen angle.
The other side of this is approximately £160 million of revenue for TfL is lost through fare evasion which is endemic at some stations and on some bus routes. If one in every six journeys is being made fraudulently you'd argue, I think, spending more on catching fare dodgers might be a more popular policy move.
On bus routes, they all have drivers who should be the line of defence against evasion. Do they need more people on the bus?
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post...
Unless you want to use it as a springboard for, oh I don't know, Prime Minister for example?
In a development likely to infuriate some, we appear currently to be hitting the lowest ever amount of fossil fuel power generation. 1.1gw from gas, zero from coal and oil, out of 32gw total generation. It’s coming from wind (14.6), solar (6.4), nuclear (5.4) and assorted others like biomass, hydro and imports (which are from France, so nuclear).
That was pretty much inevitable after the level of increase of wind from the later strategic decisions made by the Blair and Brown administration *, and solar where the industry has been running at capacity since aiui Covid given energy prices.
It's interesting that imports/exports are not as unbalanced as might be expected.
On current electricity demand, which is low at under 30GW, we are importing 14% and exporting 6% - 3% each to Ireland and Norway. That latter is interesting. * Another thing not done when it needed to done by Governments since, but we know that. Since Macron's Govt used cutting-off electricity as a political threat during Brexit negotiations, that has not been well addressed either.
Ah, so the German conference was shut down after Salman Abu Sitta, an activist who wrote an essay that ‘expressed understanding” for the October 7th attack on Israel, appeared via video link having been banned from entering Germany. He is the uncle of the Dr. Sitta who was also arrested.
Hamas, in Germany as in the UK, is a proscribed terrorist organisation, and Salman Abu Sitta has a history of supporting Hamas and “making anti-Semitic and violence-glorifying remarks”. He is banned from “political activity” in Germany.
0-Expert in just over 3 hrs, remarkable performance figs even by PB standards.
Which is about 2 hours fifty less than it takes Scot Nats to become experts on how to be a long-term petro-economy whilst simultaneously banning new hydrocarbons exploration.
Ah, so the German conference was shut down after Salman Abu Sitta, an activist who wrote an essay that ‘expressed understanding” for the October 7th attack on Israel, appeared via video link having been banned from entering Germany. He is the uncle of the Dr. Sitta who was also arrested.
Hamas, in Germany as in the UK, is a proscribed terrorist organisation, and Salman Abu Sitta has a history of supporting Hamas and “making anti-Semitic and violence-glorifying remarks”. He is banned from “political activity” in Germany.
0-Expert in just over 3 hrs, remarkable performance figs even by PB standards.
So it's banning relatives of those who say things you don't like now. Good job the IDF wasn't involved or Dr Sitta might have had had his transport rocketed.
It’s called doing some research and finding impartial sources, it doesn’t take long now that we have information at our fingertips thanks to this internet thingy.
As I expected it would be, it turns out that the conference was going to be a long line of anti-Semites spewing their bile, and when the first terrorist supporter banned from Germany turned up instead by video link, the police had seen enough and shut the event down.
I have no intention of leaving Scotland. We have culture, we have great countryside and coastal scenery, we have history, people with interesting ideas.
Parts don't work work as well they should but perhaps they can be fixed.
There have been reductions in bus mileage and some routes have been cut. It isn't all about the tube (which has much less impact south of the river such as in Kingston and Sutton) but about buses and trains as well. However, the argument for continued investment and no further cuts to bus routes gets lost in the fares frozen angle.
The other side of this is approximately £160 million of revenue for TfL is lost through fare evasion which is endemic at some stations and on some bus routes. If one in every six journeys is being made fraudulently you'd argue, I think, spending more on catching fare dodgers might be a more popular policy move.
On bus routes, they all have drivers who should be the line of defence against evasion. Do they need more people on the bus?
The problem on buses with more than one set of doors is people sneak on at the back of the bus (where people get off) while the driver is dealing with legitimate passengers getting on at the front.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post...
Unless you want to use it as a springboard for, oh I don't know, Prime Minister for example?
That's only happened once so far and under, I'd argue, very special circumstances.
Ah, so the German conference was shut down after Salman Abu Sitta, an activist who wrote an essay that ‘expressed understanding” for the October 7th attack on Israel, appeared via video link having been banned from entering Germany. He is the uncle of the Dr. Sitta who was also arrested.
Hamas, in Germany as in the UK, is a proscribed terrorist organisation, and Salman Abu Sitta has a history of supporting Hamas and “making anti-Semitic and violence-glorifying remarks”. He is banned from “political activity” in Germany.
0-Expert in just over 3 hrs, remarkable performance figs even by PB standards.
Which is about 2 hours fifty less than it takes Scot Nats to become experts on how to be a long-term petro-economy whilst simultaneously banning new hydrocarbons exploration.
It takes rather longer, however, inh fact evidently years, for PBUnionists to comprehend why a minority Scottish Government couldn't do very much with what was left of its transport prrogramme for the rest of Scotland when Tories joined Greens and others in a majority vote for blowing most of it on the Edinburgh trams rather than the A9.
I have no intention of leaving Scotland. We have culture, we have great countryside and coastal scenery, we have history, people with interesting ideas.
Parts don't work work as well they should but perhaps they can be fixed.
Other countries have culture, countryside, coastal scenery, history, people and ideas
They also don't have 45%-55% tax, tidal waves of immigration, rampant urban decay, intense uglification of towns, and, in Scotland's case, probably the worst climate in the world. Plus midges
Of course they have those good things and if I was there already I'm sure I would want to stay.
Scotland doesn't remotely have the worst climate in the world. It's actually quite favourable as long as the North Atlantic Drift holds out. Not having to dodge between air conditioned buildings and vehicles is a plus in my book
Chacun a son gout, of course. But it is a matter of fact that Scotland is one of the most sun-deprived areas on earth - comparable with the Aleutian islands and with less sun than Greenland, also it is cold and wet and never has a proper summer and it has tons of midges and it Satanically dark in the winter. Apart from that it is like California
Some of us *don't like the sun*. I hate the bloody thing.
Then you have no need to budge. Plus you have the benefit of being surrounded by a community of similarly miserable heliophobes.
It's probably best if you all huddle together on a loch-side.
Just wait 10-20 years: we'll all probably have too much of the bloody thing.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post...
Unless you want to use it as a springboard for, oh I don't know, Prime Minister for example?
That's only happened once so far and under, I'd argue, very special circumstances.
It’s only happened once, but that is one in three of all London mayors becoming PM. Whatever other position has a 33% hit rate for producing future PMs?
There have been reductions in bus mileage and some routes have been cut. It isn't all about the tube (which has much less impact south of the river such as in Kingston and Sutton) but about buses and trains as well. However, the argument for continued investment and no further cuts to bus routes gets lost in the fares frozen angle.
The other side of this is approximately £160 million of revenue for TfL is lost through fare evasion which is endemic at some stations and on some bus routes. If one in every six journeys is being made fraudulently you'd argue, I think, spending more on catching fare dodgers might be a more popular policy move.
On bus routes, they all have drivers who should be the line of defence against evasion. Do they need more people on the bus?
There are random ticket inspections now and again.
Ah, so the German conference was shut down after Salman Abu Sitta, an activist who wrote an essay that ‘expressed understanding” for the October 7th attack on Israel, appeared via video link having been banned from entering Germany. He is the uncle of the Dr. Sitta who was also arrested.
Hamas, in Germany as in the UK, is a proscribed terrorist organisation, and Salman Abu Sitta has a history of supporting Hamas and “making anti-Semitic and violence-glorifying remarks”. He is banned from “political activity” in Germany.
0-Expert in just over 3 hrs, remarkable performance figs even by PB standards.
Which is about 2 hours fifty less than it takes Scot Nats to become experts on how to be a long-term petro-economy whilst simultaneously banning new hydrocarbons exploration.
I will always treasure the expertise of the Bit Nat petro-economists of PB that in 2014 assured us that NS oil was a burden of diminishing value that would be of no use whatsoever to an indy Scotland and new oil fields off Shetland were a mirage. Now that's what I call expertise.
One more point - on the emigration of affluent Brits - in the last year two of my friends have confirmed their departure: one to Provence, the other to Thailand. It really is happening. People are fucking off, and these are all prosperous net tax positive people for the UK, one in his 40s with decades of good earning ahead
Britain is driving away the affluent Brits (let alone the non doms) and replacing them with Nigerian nurses with fake qualifications and Bangladeshi students that murder their dependant wives
Are you having a bad day? Do you have a hangover?
No, why? I'm in a jolly good mood. It's a beautiful spring day, I have some enjoyable work to do. I'm just being honest about the State of the Nation, and the increasing appeal of foreign parts to more mobile Brits (and non doms). Britain is becoming quite dystopian (the weather doesn't help). People will not pay high taxes to live in dystopia
Nor is this a partisan thing. Much of the blame for this lies with the Tories, they have been economically inept, and pathetically leftwing - while saying naff rightwing things, and it was them that turned on the migration taps to an insane 1.4 MILLION in two years. I despise them for it and I hope they are destroyed in the election. Fuck em
Spain has had large-scale immigration...mostly white.
Is it the fraudulent Nigerians and homicidal Bangladeshis you don't like or, when it comes down to it, the proles, horrible smelly proles of whatever colour? As a check, imagine being surrounded by born and bred lilywhite Londoners, with so much Thames blood flowing in their veins that they've rarely left their city of birth, all saying "Gorblimey mate" and how much they admire the Queen Mother and the Kray Twins. Less scary or about the same?
Much less scary, or, rather, much less "alien". I miss the old white cockney London. It was still very noticeable when I was first here, indeed it prevailed until the late 1990s. The demographic stats show this
There is a tipping point, to my mind, where a great city goes from being fascinatingly diverse and vibrant, with lots of different communities but still one big welcoming host community - in London's case, white Brits (and I liked that vibrant, diverse London) - and then you cross a line where the host community is no longer the majority and something profound changes. Whte Brits are in a minority in London now. I find this regrettable, I am sure the French might feel the same about Paris or the Nigerians about Lagos or the Japanese about Tokyo or the Papua New Guineans about Port Moresby, so it's not reacism, it is preferring your own people in your own city, which is entirely human, like preferring your own family in your own home
And yes, maybe I am just a grumpy old man, or maybe I just like sun too much. But I do think I'm off, I've kinda already left, spending more than half the year abroad as it is, so it won't be a dramatic wrench, I've basically already done it
Another Leaver quits.
No patriotism some people.
Like Nick Clegg, you mean?
I don't think he voted Leave.
No, he solemnly promised us an in/out EU vote in the election of 2010 and then reacted like a scalded cat when we actually had one, and said it was a terrible idea, and then when we had one and voted Out he tried to get it overturned, he tried to cancel democracy, and then when he failed to destroy British democracy he fucked off to California to earn $2m for Facebook, aka EVIL INCORPORATED. That's yer Lib Dems. That's you
So after depriving others from retiring to the sun, you are getting away from the mass immigration and cultural change in this country by immigrating to Spain and causing cultural change there.
One more point - on the emigration of affluent Brits - in the last year two of my friends have confirmed their departure: one to Provence, the other to Thailand. It really is happening. People are fucking off, and these are all prosperous net tax positive people for the UK, one in his 40s with decades of good earning ahead
Britain is driving away the affluent Brits (let alone the non doms) and replacing them with Nigerian nurses with fake qualifications and Bangladeshi students that murder their dependant wives
Are you having a bad day? Do you have a hangover?
No, why? I'm in a jolly good mood. It's a beautiful spring day, I have some enjoyable work to do. I'm just being honest about the State of the Nation, and the increasing appeal of foreign parts to more mobile Brits (and non doms). Britain is becoming quite dystopian (the weather doesn't help). People will not pay high taxes to live in dystopia
Nor is this a partisan thing. Much of the blame for this lies with the Tories, they have been economically inept, and pathetically leftwing - while saying naff rightwing things, and it was them that turned on the migration taps to an insane 1.4 MILLION in two years. I despise them for it and I hope they are destroyed in the election. Fuck em
Spain has had large-scale immigration...mostly white.
Is it the fraudulent Nigerians and homicidal Bangladeshis you don't like or, when it comes down to it, the proles, horrible smelly proles of whatever colour? As a check, imagine being surrounded by born and bred lilywhite Londoners, with so much Thames blood flowing in their veins that they've rarely left their city of birth, all saying "Gorblimey mate" and how much they admire the Queen Mother and the Kray Twins. Less scary or about the same?
Much less scary, or, rather, much less "alien". I miss the old white cockney London. It was still very noticeable when I was first here, indeed it prevailed until the late 1990s. The demographic stats show this
There is a tipping point, to my mind, where a great city goes from being fascinatingly diverse and vibrant, with lots of different communities but still one big welcoming host community - in London's case, white Brits (and I liked that vibrant, diverse London) - and then you cross a line where the host community is no longer the majority and something profound changes. Whte Brits are in a minority in London now. I find this regrettable, I am sure the French might feel the same about Paris or the Nigerians about Lagos or the Japanese about Tokyo or the Papua New Guineans about Port Moresby, so it's not reacism, it is preferring your own people in your own city, which is entirely human, like preferring your own family in your own home
And yes, maybe I am just a grumpy old man, or maybe I just like sun too much. But I do think I'm off, I've kinda already left, spending more than half the year abroad as it is, so it won't be a dramatic wrench, I've basically already done it
Another Leaver quits.
No patriotism some people.
Like Nick Clegg, you mean?
I don't think he voted Leave.
No, he solemnly promised us an in/out EU vote in the election of 2010 and then reacted like a scalded cat when we actually had one, and said it was a terrible idea, and then when we had one and voted Out he tried to get it overturned, he tried to cancel democracy, and then when he failed to destroy British democracy he fucked off to California to earn $2m for Facebook, aka EVIL INCORPORATED. That's yer Lib Dems. That's you
So after depriving others from retiring to the sun, you are getting away from the mass immigration and cultural change in this country by immigrating to Spain and causing cultural change there.
There have been reductions in bus mileage and some routes have been cut. It isn't all about the tube (which has much less impact south of the river such as in Kingston and Sutton) but about buses and trains as well. However, the argument for continued investment and no further cuts to bus routes gets lost in the fares frozen angle.
The other side of this is approximately £160 million of revenue for TfL is lost through fare evasion which is endemic at some stations and on some bus routes. If one in every six journeys is being made fraudulently you'd argue, I think, spending more on catching fare dodgers might be a more popular policy move.
On bus routes, they all have drivers who should be the line of defence against evasion. Do they need more people on the bus?
The problem on buses with more than one set of doors is people sneak on at the back of the bus (where people get off) while the driver is dealing with legitimate passengers getting on at the front.
Ah, so the German conference was shut down after Salman Abu Sitta, an activist who wrote an essay that ‘expressed understanding” for the October 7th attack on Israel, appeared via video link having been banned from entering Germany. He is the uncle of the Dr. Sitta who was also arrested.
Hamas, in Germany as in the UK, is a proscribed terrorist organisation, and Salman Abu Sitta has a history of supporting Hamas and “making anti-Semitic and violence-glorifying remarks”. He is banned from “political activity” in Germany.
0-Expert in just over 3 hrs, remarkable performance figs even by PB standards.
So it's banning relatives of those who say things you don't like now. Good job the IDF wasn't involved or Dr Sitta might have had had his transport rocketed.
It’s called doing some research and finding impartial sources, it doesn’t take long now that we have information at our fingertips thanks to this internet thingy.
As I expected it would be, it turns out that the conference was going to be a long line of anti-Semites spewing their bile, and when the first terrorist supporter banned from Germany turned up instead by video link, the police had seen enough and shut the event down.
The organisers can just thank their lucky stars that we couldn't see it in Scotland. If we could Police Scotland would have been all over them in months!
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
I’d love to know who put up the £10k deposit for Binface, someone wealthy but with a sense of humour. I think he’d get my vote!
The problem I would have with Naomi Campbell is the business she is involved in, which I have strong views about.
She works as Co-CEO of a business called Belu, which takes water from the Welsh countryside, puts it in plastic bottles, and ships it round and round the country.
The marketing shtick is that this is environmentally friendly.
The first principle of being environmentally friendly is not to do things which do not need to be done ... prevent. Environmentally friendly drinking water comes out of the tap.
I'd suggest that that business / marketing model is scamming the public on a fairly monumental scale.
He worked schemed and manoeuvred for more than 20 years to become Conservative leader and then Prime Minister. When he was a journalist he was espousing the Conservative line during the zenith of Blair and when he became London Mayor, he was briefly the senior elected Conservative politician.
The self-promotion and image development belies the notion of being a lazy individual - he's not. He will work hard on things he cares about but less so on other issues.
He finally became Prime Minister with a sizeable majority, a party in thrall to him and a new set of believers in the north and midlands who could have kept him in power for longer than Thatcher and yet...
Not quite the same as being brought down by two tarts but a microscopic virus was the last thing he wanted or needed. Instead of presiding over an optimistic, cheery, upbeat Britain in the 2020s he had to lock us all down and showed that while he had levitas in abundance, gravitas was sorely lacking. He does well in a war type situation (Ukraine) but you can't argue or reason with a virus and the measures he had to take (against his better nature) fundamentally changed the psychological and cultural mood.
He found the job of Prime Minister not what he expected - to be cheerleader-in-chief for the country - and what he had to do wasn't what he wanted to do.
The irony was having worked for so long to get where he wanted he found it wasn't what he expected or in the end wanted. Having been successful for so long, he found failure hard to swallow (that's true of many politicians) and he found the popularity and optimism he wanted to engender just wasn't there in pandemic and post-pandemic Britain.
All that said, his support for Ukraine in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion stands as a monument to his better nature - he's not a bad man by any stretch, foolish, self centred, perhaps naive at times but many of us have those traits often in abundance. I'd happily have a drink with him anytime and I think he'd be good company on the right day as he's incredibly knowledgeable on a range of topics but as Prime Minister, no.
There have been reductions in bus mileage and some routes have been cut. It isn't all about the tube (which has much less impact south of the river such as in Kingston and Sutton) but about buses and trains as well. However, the argument for continued investment and no further cuts to bus routes gets lost in the fares frozen angle.
The other side of this is approximately £160 million of revenue for TfL is lost through fare evasion which is endemic at some stations and on some bus routes. If one in every six journeys is being made fraudulently you'd argue, I think, spending more on catching fare dodgers might be a more popular policy move.
On bus routes, they all have drivers who should be the line of defence against evasion. Do they need more people on the bus?
The problem on buses with more than one set of doors is people sneak on at the back of the bus (where people get off) while the driver is dealing with legitimate passengers getting on at the front.
Deleted, I was about to post impractical rubbish!
And you had a problem with this? Well, its novel, I'll give you that.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post...
Unless you want to use it as a springboard for, oh I don't know, Prime Minister for example?
Ah, so the German conference was shut down after Salman Abu Sitta, an activist who wrote an essay that ‘expressed understanding” for the October 7th attack on Israel, appeared via video link having been banned from entering Germany. He is the uncle of the Dr. Sitta who was also arrested.
Hamas, in Germany as in the UK, is a proscribed terrorist organisation, and Salman Abu Sitta has a history of supporting Hamas and “making anti-Semitic and violence-glorifying remarks”. He is banned from “political activity” in Germany.
0-Expert in just over 3 hrs, remarkable performance figs even by PB standards.
Which is about 2 hours fifty less than it takes Scot Nats to become experts on how to be a long-term petro-economy whilst simultaneously banning new hydrocarbons exploration.
It's Scotland's Oil. We just choose not to use it. Apparently.
One more point - on the emigration of affluent Brits - in the last year two of my friends have confirmed their departure: one to Provence, the other to Thailand. It really is happening. People are fucking off, and these are all prosperous net tax positive people for the UK, one in his 40s with decades of good earning ahead
Britain is driving away the affluent Brits (let alone the non doms) and replacing them with Nigerian nurses with fake qualifications and Bangladeshi students that murder their dependant wives
Are you having a bad day? Do you have a hangover?
No, why? I'm in a jolly good mood. It's a beautiful spring day, I have some enjoyable work to do. I'm just being honest about the State of the Nation, and the increasing appeal of foreign parts to more mobile Brits (and non doms). Britain is becoming quite dystopian (the weather doesn't help). People will not pay high taxes to live in dystopia
Nor is this a partisan thing. Much of the blame for this lies with the Tories, they have been economically inept, and pathetically leftwing - while saying naff rightwing things, and it was them that turned on the migration taps to an insane 1.4 MILLION in two years. I despise them for it and I hope they are destroyed in the election. Fuck em
Spain has had large-scale immigration...mostly white.
Is it the fraudulent Nigerians and homicidal Bangladeshis you don't like or, when it comes down to it, the proles, horrible smelly proles of whatever colour? As a check, imagine being surrounded by born and bred lilywhite Londoners, with so much Thames blood flowing in their veins that they've rarely left their city of birth, all saying "Gorblimey mate" and how much they admire the Queen Mother and the Kray Twins. Less scary or about the same?
Much less scary, or, rather, much less "alien". I miss the old white cockney London. It was still very noticeable when I was first here, indeed it prevailed until the late 1990s. The demographic stats show this
There is a tipping point, to my mind, where a great city goes from being fascinatingly diverse and vibrant, with lots of different communities but still one big welcoming host community - in London's case, white Brits (and I liked that vibrant, diverse London) - and then you cross a line where the host community is no longer the majority and something profound changes. Whte Brits are in a minority in London now. I find this regrettable, I am sure the French might feel the same about Paris or the Nigerians about Lagos or the Japanese about Tokyo or the Papua New Guineans about Port Moresby, so it's not reacism, it is preferring your own people in your own city, which is entirely human, like preferring your own family in your own home
And yes, maybe I am just a grumpy old man, or maybe I just like sun too much. But I do think I'm off, I've kinda already left, spending more than half the year abroad as it is, so it won't be a dramatic wrench, I've basically already done it
Another Leaver quits.
No patriotism some people.
Like Nick Clegg, you mean?
I don't think he voted Leave.
No, he solemnly promised us an in/out EU vote in the election of 2010 and then reacted like a scalded cat when we actually had one, and said it was a terrible idea, and then when we had one and voted Out he tried to get it overturned, he tried to cancel democracy, and then when he failed to destroy British democracy he fucked off to California to earn $2m for Facebook, aka EVIL INCORPORATED. That's yer Lib Dems. That's you
So after depriving others from retiring to the sun, you are getting away from the mass immigration and cultural change in this country by immigrating to Spain and causing cultural change there.
I will be paying in Spain, even as a digital nomad, a fuckload more tax than the average "dependant" of a Nigerian nurse or a Bangladeshi student in the UK; as an affluent person I will also be injecting more money into the local economy rather than being a net negative for Spain. I guess that is why Spain has voluntarily devised this scheme, to invite higher tax payers like me
I am sorry you are stuck in a fucking shithole like Leicester, you should have been more persuasive in the referendum
I had forgotten my favourite OJ Simpson fact (probably my favourite fact), OJ Simpson was a sprinter before becoming an American footballer, he took part in a race in 1967 won by a British athlete who ran under 10.2s for the second time that year
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
I’d love to know who put up the £10k deposit for Binface, someone wealthy but with a sense of humour. I think he’d get my vote!
The problem I would have with Naomi Campbell is the business she is involved in, which I have strong views about.
She works as Co-CEO of a business called Belu, which takes water from the Welsh countryside, puts it in plastic bottles, and ships it round and round the country.
The marketing shtick is that this is environmentally friendly.
The first principle of being environmentally friendly is not to do things which do not need to be done ... prevent. Environmentally friendly drinking water comes out of the tap.
I'd suggest that that business / marketing model is scamming the public on a scale of which Trump would be proud.
Naomi Campbell (as in the former fashion model?) put up Binface’s deposit?
From what I know of this woman, a scummy water company is a long way from the worst enterprise she’s been involved in.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post...
Unless you want to use it as a springboard for, oh I don't know, Prime Minister for example?
That's only happened once so far and under, I'd argue, very special circumstances.
It’s only happened once, but that is one in three of all London mayors becoming PM. Whatever other position has a 33% hit rate for producing future PMs?
Not done the maths but I would guess Chancellors of the Exchequer?
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post...
Unless you want to use it as a springboard for, oh I don't know, Prime Minister for example?
That's only happened once so far and under, I'd argue, very special circumstances.
It’s only happened once, but that is one in three of all London mayors becoming PM. Whatever other position has a 33% hit rate for producing future PMs?
Not done the maths but I would guess Chancellors of the Exchequer?
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
I’d love to know who put up the £10k deposit for Binface, someone wealthy but with a sense of humour. I think he’d get my vote!
The problem I would have with Naomi Campbell is the business she is involved in, which I have strong views about.
She works as Co-CEO of a business called Belu, which takes water from the Welsh countryside, puts it in plastic bottles, and ships it round and round the country.
The marketing shtick is that this is environmentally friendly.
The first principle of being environmentally friendly is not to do things which do not need to be done ... prevent. Environmentally friendly drinking water comes out of the tap.
I'd suggest that that business / marketing model is scamming the public on a scale of which Trump would be proud.
Naomi Campbell (as in the former fashion model?) put up Binface’s deposit?
From what I know of this woman, a scummy water company is a long way from the worst enterprise she’s been involved in.
I had forgotten my favourite OJ Simpson fact (probably my favourite fact), OJ Simpson was a sprinter before becoming an American footballer, he took part in a race in 1967 won by a British athlete who ran under 10.2s for the second time that year
That athlete, Ming Campbell
A good friend of mine who is active in politics (to the extent that a Lib Dem can be) used to describe how, in his 60s, Ming would go canvassing in St Andrews. He would have several door knockers asking who wanted to meet the great man and he would literally run from house to house all day until his young door knockers were just out on their feet.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
I’d love to know who put up the £10k deposit for Binface, someone wealthy but with a sense of humour. I think he’d get my vote!
The problem I would have with Naomi Campbell is the business she is involved in, which I have strong views about.
She works as Co-CEO of a business called Belu, which takes water from the Welsh countryside, puts it in plastic bottles, and ships it round and round the country.
The marketing shtick is that this is environmentally friendly.
The first principle of being environmentally friendly is not to do things which do not need to be done ... prevent. Environmentally friendly drinking water comes out of the tap.
I'd suggest that that business / marketing model is scamming the public on a scale of which Trump would be proud.
Naomi Campbell (as in the former fashion model?) put up Binface’s deposit?
From what I know of this woman, a scummy water company is a long way from the worst enterprise she’s been involved in.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post...
Unless you want to use it as a springboard for, oh I don't know, Prime Minister for example?
That's only happened once so far and under, I'd argue, very special circumstances.
It’s only happened once, but that is one in three of all London mayors becoming PM. Whatever other position has a 33% hit rate for producing future PMs?
Not done the maths but I would guess Chancellors of the Exchequer?
One more point - on the emigration of affluent Brits - in the last year two of my friends have confirmed their departure: one to Provence, the other to Thailand. It really is happening. People are fucking off, and these are all prosperous net tax positive people for the UK, one in his 40s with decades of good earning ahead
Britain is driving away the affluent Brits (let alone the non doms) and replacing them with Nigerian nurses with fake qualifications and Bangladeshi students that murder their dependant wives
Are you having a bad day? Do you have a hangover?
No, why? I'm in a jolly good mood. It's a beautiful spring day, I have some enjoyable work to do. I'm just being honest about the State of the Nation, and the increasing appeal of foreign parts to more mobile Brits (and non doms). Britain is becoming quite dystopian (the weather doesn't help). People will not pay high taxes to live in dystopia
Nor is this a partisan thing. Much of the blame for this lies with the Tories, they have been economically inept, and pathetically leftwing - while saying naff rightwing things, and it was them that turned on the migration taps to an insane 1.4 MILLION in two years. I despise them for it and I hope they are destroyed in the election. Fuck em
Spain has had large-scale immigration...mostly white.
Is it the fraudulent Nigerians and homicidal Bangladeshis you don't like or, when it comes down to it, the proles, horrible smelly proles of whatever colour? As a check, imagine being surrounded by born and bred lilywhite Londoners, with so much Thames blood flowing in their veins that they've rarely left their city of birth, all saying "Gorblimey mate" and how much they admire the Queen Mother and the Kray Twins. Less scary or about the same?
Much less scary, or, rather, much less "alien". I miss the old white cockney London. It was still very noticeable when I was first here, indeed it prevailed until the late 1990s. The demographic stats show this
There is a tipping point, to my mind, where a great city goes from being fascinatingly diverse and vibrant, with lots of different communities but still one big welcoming host community - in London's case, white Brits (and I liked that vibrant, diverse London) - and then you cross a line where the host community is no longer the majority and something profound changes. Whte Brits are in a minority in London now. I find this regrettable, I am sure the French might feel the same about Paris or the Nigerians about Lagos or the Japanese about Tokyo or the Papua New Guineans about Port Moresby, so it's not reacism, it is preferring your own people in your own city, which is entirely human, like preferring your own family in your own home
And yes, maybe I am just a grumpy old man, or maybe I just like sun too much. But I do think I'm off, I've kinda already left, spending more than half the year abroad as it is, so it won't be a dramatic wrench, I've basically already done it
Another Leaver quits.
No patriotism some people.
Like Nick Clegg, you mean?
I don't think he voted Leave.
No, he solemnly promised us an in/out EU vote in the election of 2010 and then reacted like a scalded cat when we actually had one, and said it was a terrible idea, and then when we had one and voted Out he tried to get it overturned, he tried to cancel democracy, and then when he failed to destroy British democracy he fucked off to California to earn $2m for Facebook, aka EVIL INCORPORATED. That's yer Lib Dems. That's you
So after depriving others from retiring to the sun, you are getting away from the mass immigration and cultural change in this country by immigrating to Spain and causing cultural change there.
I will be paying in Spain, even as a digital nomad, a fuckload more tax than the average "dependant" of a Nigerian nurse or a Bangladeshi student in the UK; as an affluent person I will also be injecting more money into the local economy rather than being a net negative for Spain. I guess that is why Spain has voluntarily devised this scheme, to invite higher tax payers like me
I am sorry you are stuck in a fucking shithole like Leicester, you should have been more persuasive in the referendum
So immigration is good for the Spanish economy, just ignore the cultural change and squeezing out locals.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post...
Unless you want to use it as a springboard for, oh I don't know, Prime Minister for example?
That's only happened once so far and under, I'd argue, very special circumstances.
It’s only happened once, but that is one in three of all London mayors becoming PM. Whatever other position has a 33% hit rate for producing future PMs?
Not done the maths but I would guess Chancellors of the Exchequer?
Isn’t it only 3 out of the last 20 CoEs?
3/6 of PMs.
But that’s not the denominator in question, it’s how many people in post X went on to be PM.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post...
Unless you want to use it as a springboard for, oh I don't know, Prime Minister for example?
That's only happened once so far and under, I'd argue, very special circumstances.
It’s only happened once, but that is one in three of all London mayors becoming PM. Whatever other position has a 33% hit rate for producing future PMs?
Not done the maths but I would guess Chancellors of the Exchequer?
Isn’t it only 3 out of the last 20 CoEs?
3/6 of PMs.
But that’s not the denominator in question, it’s how many people in post X went on to be PM.
He worked schemed and manoeuvred for more than 20 years to become Conservative leader and then Prime Minister. When he was a journalist he was espousing the Conservative line during the zenith of Blair and when he became London Mayor, he was briefly the senior elected Conservative politician.
The self-promotion and image development belies the notion of being a lazy individual - he's not. He will work hard on things he cares about but less so on other issues.
He finally became Prime Minister with a sizeable majority, a party in thrall to him and a new set of believers in the north and midlands who could have kept him in power for longer than Thatcher and yet...
Not quite the same as being brought down by two tarts but a microscopic virus was the last thing he wanted or needed. Instead of presiding over an optimistic, cheery, upbeat Britain in the 2020s he had to lock us all down and showed that while he had levitas in abundance, gravitas was sorely lacking. He does well in a war type situation (Ukraine) but you can't argue or reason with a virus and the measures he had to take (against his better nature) fundamentally changed the psychological and cultural mood.
He found the job of Prime Minister not what he expected - to be cheerleader-in-chief for the country - and what he had to do wasn't what he wanted to do.
The irony was having worked for so long to get where he wanted he found it wasn't what he expected or in the end wanted. Having been successful for so long, he found failure hard to swallow (that's true of many politicians) and he found the popularity and optimism he wanted to engender just wasn't there in pandemic and post-pandemic Britain.
All that said, his support for Ukraine in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion stands as a monument to his better nature - he's not a bad man by any stretch, foolish, self centred, perhaps naive at times but many of us have those traits often in abundance. I'd happily have a drink with him anytime and I think he'd be good company on the right day as he's incredibly knowledgeable on a range of topics but as Prime Minister, no.
Well if you ever go for a drink with Boris make sure to take your money because you'll be paying for every round.
Ah, so the German conference was shut down after Salman Abu Sitta, an activist who wrote an essay that ‘expressed understanding” for the October 7th attack on Israel, appeared via video link having been banned from entering Germany. He is the uncle of the Dr. Sitta who was also arrested.
Hamas, in Germany as in the UK, is a proscribed terrorist organisation, and Salman Abu Sitta has a history of supporting Hamas and “making anti-Semitic and violence-glorifying remarks”. He is banned from “political activity” in Germany.
0-Expert in just over 3 hrs, remarkable performance figs even by PB standards.
So it's banning relatives of those who say things you don't like now. Good job the IDF wasn't involved or Dr Sitta might have had had his transport rocketed.
It’s called doing some research and finding impartial sources, it doesn’t take long now that we have information at our fingertips thanks to this internet thingy.
As I expected it would be, it turns out that the conference was going to be a long line of anti-Semites spewing their bile, and when the first terrorist supporter banned from Germany turned up instead by video link, the police had seen enough and shut the event down.
The organisers can just thank their lucky stars that we couldn't see it in Scotland. If we could Police Scotland would have been all over them in months!
Their friends in the Met have just been put in their place by a district judge, for arresting three times an Iranian dissident carrying a banner calling Hamas terrorists, and trying to use bail conditions to prevent him protesting in London.
I have no intention of leaving Scotland. We have culture, we have great countryside and coastal scenery, we have history, people with interesting ideas.
Parts don't work work as well they should but perhaps they can be fixed.
He worked schemed and manoeuvred for more than 20 years to become Conservative leader and then Prime Minister. When he was a journalist he was espousing the Conservative line during the zenith of Blair and when he became London Mayor, he was briefly the senior elected Conservative politician.
The self-promotion and image development belies the notion of being a lazy individual - he's not. He will work hard on things he cares about but less so on other issues.
He finally became Prime Minister with a sizeable majority, a party in thrall to him and a new set of believers in the north and midlands who could have kept him in power for longer than Thatcher and yet...
Not quite the same as being brought down by two tarts but a microscopic virus was the last thing he wanted or needed. Instead of presiding over an optimistic, cheery, upbeat Britain in the 2020s he had to lock us all down and showed that while he had levitas in abundance, gravitas was sorely lacking. He does well in a war type situation (Ukraine) but you can't argue or reason with a virus and the measures he had to take (against his better nature) fundamentally changed the psychological and cultural mood.
He found the job of Prime Minister not what he expected - to be cheerleader-in-chief for the country - and what he had to do wasn't what he wanted to do.
The irony was having worked for so long to get where he wanted he found it wasn't what he expected or in the end wanted. Having been successful for so long, he found failure hard to swallow (that's true of many politicians) and he found the popularity and optimism he wanted to engender just wasn't there in pandemic and post-pandemic Britain.
All that said, his support for Ukraine in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion stands as a monument to his better nature - he's not a bad man by any stretch, foolish, self centred, perhaps naive at times but many of us have those traits often in abundance. I'd happily have a drink with him anytime and I think he'd be good company on the right day as he's incredibly knowledgeable on a range of topics but as Prime Minister, no.
Ukraine and Brexit he “sorted out”.
But Brexit he basically caused in the first place and then ran away.
He’s a coward. He always runs when it gets difficult.
One more point - on the emigration of affluent Brits - in the last year two of my friends have confirmed their departure: one to Provence, the other to Thailand. It really is happening. People are fucking off, and these are all prosperous net tax positive people for the UK, one in his 40s with decades of good earning ahead
Britain is driving away the affluent Brits (let alone the non doms) and replacing them with Nigerian nurses with fake qualifications and Bangladeshi students that murder their dependant wives
Are you having a bad day? Do you have a hangover?
No, why? I'm in a jolly good mood. It's a beautiful spring day, I have some enjoyable work to do. I'm just being honest about the State of the Nation, and the increasing appeal of foreign parts to more mobile Brits (and non doms). Britain is becoming quite dystopian (the weather doesn't help). People will not pay high taxes to live in dystopia
Nor is this a partisan thing. Much of the blame for this lies with the Tories, they have been economically inept, and pathetically leftwing - while saying naff rightwing things, and it was them that turned on the migration taps to an insane 1.4 MILLION in two years. I despise them for it and I hope they are destroyed in the election. Fuck em
Spain has had large-scale immigration...mostly white.
Is it the fraudulent Nigerians and homicidal Bangladeshis you don't like or, when it comes down to it, the proles, horrible smelly proles of whatever colour? As a check, imagine being surrounded by born and bred lilywhite Londoners, with so much Thames blood flowing in their veins that they've rarely left their city of birth, all saying "Gorblimey mate" and how much they admire the Queen Mother and the Kray Twins. Less scary or about the same?
Much less scary, or, rather, much less "alien". I miss the old white cockney London. It was still very noticeable when I was first here, indeed it prevailed until the late 1990s. The demographic stats show this
There is a tipping point, to my mind, where a great city goes from being fascinatingly diverse and vibrant, with lots of different communities but still one big welcoming host community - in London's case, white Brits (and I liked that vibrant, diverse London) - and then you cross a line where the host community is no longer the majority and something profound changes. Whte Brits are in a minority in London now. I find this regrettable, I am sure the French might feel the same about Paris or the Nigerians about Lagos or the Japanese about Tokyo or the Papua New Guineans about Port Moresby, so it's not reacism, it is preferring your own people in your own city, which is entirely human, like preferring your own family in your own home
And yes, maybe I am just a grumpy old man, or maybe I just like sun too much. But I do think I'm off, I've kinda already left, spending more than half the year abroad as it is, so it won't be a dramatic wrench, I've basically already done it
Another Leaver quits.
No patriotism some people.
Like Nick Clegg, you mean?
I don't think he voted Leave.
No, he solemnly promised us an in/out EU vote in the election of 2010 and then reacted like a scalded cat when we actually had one, and said it was a terrible idea, and then when we had one and voted Out he tried to get it overturned, he tried to cancel democracy, and then when he failed to destroy British democracy he fucked off to California to earn $2m for Facebook, aka EVIL INCORPORATED. That's yer Lib Dems. That's you
So after depriving others from retiring to the sun, you are getting away from the mass immigration and cultural change in this country by immigrating to Spain and causing cultural change there.
I will be paying in Spain, even as a digital nomad, a fuckload more tax than the average "dependant" of a Nigerian nurse or a Bangladeshi student in the UK; as an affluent person I will also be injecting more money into the local economy rather than being a net negative for Spain. I guess that is why Spain has voluntarily devised this scheme, to invite higher tax payers like me
I am sorry you are stuck in a fucking shithole like Leicester, you should have been more persuasive in the referendum
So immigration is good for the Spanish economy, just ignore the cultural change and squeezing out locals.
I've just got a weird feeling that as a late middle aged white thriller writer, of British descent, with a large income and no need to draw on the local economy, I am going to cause a bit less social and cultural trauma to Ibiza, than a large community of rural Pakistanis moving to London or Bristol or Manc, being an economic net negative, and then possibly blowing up a bus. Dunno. Random guess
He worked schemed and manoeuvred for more than 20 years to become Conservative leader and then Prime Minister. When he was a journalist he was espousing the Conservative line during the zenith of Blair and when he became London Mayor, he was briefly the senior elected Conservative politician.
The self-promotion and image development belies the notion of being a lazy individual - he's not. He will work hard on things he cares about but less so on other issues.
He finally became Prime Minister with a sizeable majority, a party in thrall to him and a new set of believers in the north and midlands who could have kept him in power for longer than Thatcher and yet...
Not quite the same as being brought down by two tarts but a microscopic virus was the last thing he wanted or needed. Instead of presiding over an optimistic, cheery, upbeat Britain in the 2020s he had to lock us all down and showed that while he had levitas in abundance, gravitas was sorely lacking. He does well in a war type situation (Ukraine) but you can't argue or reason with a virus and the measures he had to take (against his better nature) fundamentally changed the psychological and cultural mood.
He found the job of Prime Minister not what he expected - to be cheerleader-in-chief for the country - and what he had to do wasn't what he wanted to do.
The irony was having worked for so long to get where he wanted he found it wasn't what he expected or in the end wanted. Having been successful for so long, he found failure hard to swallow (that's true of many politicians) and he found the popularity and optimism he wanted to engender just wasn't there in pandemic and post-pandemic Britain.
All that said, his support for Ukraine in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion stands as a monument to his better nature - he's not a bad man by any stretch, foolish, self centred, perhaps naive at times but many of us have those traits often in abundance. I'd happily have a drink with him anytime and I think he'd be good company on the right day as he's incredibly knowledgeable on a range of topics but as Prime Minister, no.
The British created their own no go zones in Spain on the Costa del Sol. It’s odd these are not bad though, could it be because the people are white?
We do tend to be a bit less keen on beheading, terrorism, random stabbing attacks, cousin marriage, concomitant child deformation, massive racist rape gangs of local underage girls, female genital mutilation, impositions of sharia law and multiple honour killings. On the other hand, we insist on Full English Breakfasts and we like a pint
I have no intention of leaving Scotland. We have culture, we have great countryside and coastal scenery, we have history, people with interesting ideas.
Parts don't work work as well they should but perhaps they can be fixed.
The word doesn't really seem even remotely apposite, but what were the police thinking?
As @Cyclefree regularly said in her headers, the process is often the punishment.
What on Earth is going to happen when these “Hate Crime” cases start to come up in front of judges? Presumably it will get to a point where the judge will say that on a narrow point of law the verdict must be guilty, but the law is totally unfair and there is leave given to appeal, and we quickly end up with a case in front of the Supreme Court who can knock the whole thing down?
President Biden has nearly erased Donald J. Trump’s early polling advantage, amid signs that the Democratic base has begun to coalesce behind the president despite lingering doubts about the direction of the country, the economy and his age, according to a new survey by The New York Times and Siena College.
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are now virtually tied
ny times
NY Times must have said that through gritted teeth, given how they might not be pro-Trump but have been relentlessly anti-Biden.
"“We are just stating the truth fully and plainly, but we are also doing that in a way that is unemotional. We are not anyone’s opposition and we’re not anyone’s lap dog,” Times publisher A. G. Sulzberger said as part of an interview with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism published Monday.
“We are going to continue to report fully and fairly, not just on Donald Trump but also on President Joe Biden. He is a historically unpopular incumbent and the oldest man to ever hold this office. We’ve reported on both of those realities extensively, and the White House has been extremely upset about it.”
The NYT reporting of (for example) the Hur report was neither full, nor fair, as has been extensively documented. Reporting Biden’s negatives is entirely reasonable - indeed essential - for good journalism. But their coverage has been anything but neutral as far as he’s concerned. It’s possible, of course, that they’re just not very good at their job.
I've seen Israel go from a rather lovely liberal country, feminist and democratic, to becoming close to an apartheid state, with lots of extreme racism aimed at ALL Arabs/Muslims, especially Palestinians
It is very very sad. But of course it is explicable, the Palestinians are just as bad in reverse, they don't just want their own nice little state. lots and lots of them fiercely loathe Jews per se, and would gleefully see them all killed (see October 7), and this anti-Semitism precedes the establishment of the Jewish state, it is encoded into Islam (though of course it has got much worse since the Naqba)
What can you do when you have two neighbouring sides that want to do a genocide on the other? In the end, I fear, some form of genocide will happen. The Israelis are having a go first before the Iranians get nukes
A brotherhood of hatred.
See Northern Ireland.
They end up needing the enemy. The one they have become.
I had forgotten my favourite OJ Simpson fact (probably my favourite fact), OJ Simpson was a sprinter before becoming an American footballer, he took part in a race in 1967 won by a British athlete who ran under 10.2s for the second time that year
That athlete, Ming Campbell
A good friend of mine who is active in politics (to the extent that a Lib Dem can be) used to describe how, in his 60s, Ming would go canvassing in St Andrews. He would have several door knockers asking who wanted to meet the great man and he would literally run from house to house all day until his young door knockers were just out on their feet.
I have no intention of leaving Scotland. We have culture, we have great countryside and coastal scenery, we have history, people with interesting ideas.
Parts don't work work as well they should but perhaps they can be fixed.
Other countries have culture, countryside, coastal scenery, history, people and ideas
They also don't have 45%-55% tax, tidal waves of immigration, rampant urban decay, intense uglification of towns, and, in Scotland's case, probably the worst climate in the world. Plus midges
Of course they have those good things and if I was there already I'm sure I would want to stay.
Scotland doesn't remotely have the worst climate in the world. It's actually quite favourable as long as the North Atlantic Drift holds out. Not having to dodge between air conditioned buildings and vehicles is a plus in my book
Chacun a son gout, of course. But it is a matter of fact that Scotland is one of the most sun-deprived areas on earth - comparable with the Aleutian islands and with less sun than Greenland, also it is cold and wet and never has a proper summer and it has tons of midges and it Satanically dark in the winter. Apart from that it is like California
Some of us *don't like the sun*. I hate the bloody thing.
Then you have no need to budge. Plus you have the benefit of being surrounded by a community of similarly miserable heliophobes.
It's probably best if you all huddle together on a loch-side.
It’s also fair to say that there’s too much sun worship in parts of modern culture.
To me, rain on green, rolling hills can be pleasant and part of the cycle of life. Given the invention of things like Gortex, what’s the problem?
I had forgotten my favourite OJ Simpson fact (probably my favourite fact), OJ Simpson was a sprinter before becoming an American footballer, he took part in a race in 1967 won by a British athlete who ran under 10.2s for the second time that year
That athlete, Ming Campbell
A good friend of mine who is active in politics (to the extent that a Lib Dem can be) used to describe how, in his 60s, Ming would go canvassing in St Andrews. He would have several door knockers asking who wanted to meet the great man and he would literally run from house to house all day until his young door knockers were just out on their feet.
Just popped back from a stroll in the gorgeous April sunshine. Not too cold, not too oppressive - is there any place on earth better than Britain when the weather is perfect? I love Britain. I love its sense of space and its intimacy. I love the way it reveres history but doesn't fetishize the past. I love its moss-covered walls and its dandelions. I love its bustling streets and sleepy pubs on rainy afternoons. I love the way you can exchange hellos with total strangers. I love its relaxation and it sense of purpose. I love its people, its landscape and its spirit. I love. I love. I love.
Ah, so the German conference was shut down after Salman Abu Sitta, an activist who wrote an essay that ‘expressed understanding” for the October 7th attack on Israel, appeared via video link having been banned from entering Germany. He is the uncle of the Dr. Sitta who was also arrested.
Hamas, in Germany as in the UK, is a proscribed terrorist organisation, and Salman Abu Sitta has a history of supporting Hamas and “making anti-Semitic and violence-glorifying remarks”. He is banned from “political activity” in Germany.
0-Expert in just over 3 hrs, remarkable performance figs even by PB standards.
Which is about 2 hours fifty less than it takes Scot Nats to become experts on how to be a long-term petro-economy whilst simultaneously banning new hydrocarbons exploration.
I will always treasure the expertise of the Bit Nat petro-economists of PB that in 2014 assured us that NS oil was a burden of diminishing value that would be of no use whatsoever to an indy Scotland and new oil fields off Shetland were a mirage. Now that's what I call expertise.
Bailed out by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
There's still a vast exposure to abandonment of facilities in UK, er sorry, Scottish, waters.
I had forgotten my favourite OJ Simpson fact (probably my favourite fact), OJ Simpson was a sprinter before becoming an American footballer, he took part in a race in 1967 won by a British athlete who ran under 10.2s for the second time that year
That athlete, Ming Campbell
A good friend of mine who is active in politics (to the extent that a Lib Dem can be) used to describe how, in his 60s, Ming would go canvassing in St Andrews. He would have several door knockers asking who wanted to meet the great man and he would literally run from house to house all day until his young door knockers were just out on their feet.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
I’d love to know who put up the £10k deposit for Binface, someone wealthy but with a sense of humour. I think he’d get my vote!
The problem I would have with Naomi Campbell is the business she is involved in, which I have strong views about.
She works as Co-CEO of a business called Belu, which takes water from the Welsh countryside, puts it in plastic bottles, and ships it round and round the country.
The marketing shtick is that this is environmentally friendly.
The first principle of being environmentally friendly is not to do things which do not need to be done ... prevent. Environmentally friendly drinking water comes out of the tap.
I'd suggest that that business / marketing model is scamming the public on a scale of which Trump would be proud.
Naomi Campbell (as in the former fashion model?) put up Binface’s deposit?
From what I know of this woman, a scummy water company is a long way from the worst enterprise she’s been involved in.
Haha. Bang to Rights !
Natalie Campbell not Naomi Campbell. Apologies to Naomi Campbell.
I'd better correct that because that's how Katie Hopkins came a cropper in a period of just a couple of hours with Jack Monroe - getting a name wrong.
I've seen Israel go from a rather lovely liberal country, feminist and democratic, to becoming close to an apartheid state, with lots of extreme racism aimed at ALL Arabs/Muslims, especially Palestinians
It is very very sad. But of course it is explicable, the Palestinians are just as bad in reverse, they don't just want their own nice little state. lots and lots of them fiercely loathe Jews per se, and would gleefully see them all killed (see October 7), and this anti-Semitism precedes the establishment of the Jewish state, it is encoded into Islam (though of course it has got much worse since the Naqba)
What can you do when you have two neighbouring sides that want to do a genocide on the other? In the end, I fear, some form of genocide will happen. The Israelis are having a go first before the Iranians get nukes
A brotherhood of hatred.
See Northern Ireland.
They end up needing the enemy. The one they have become.
I must have missed the bits where Palestinian government ministers called for all the Jews in Palestine to be subjugated, deported, or killed; where they've said they want maternity hospitals to be segregated; and where they've stormed hospitals and shot Jewish patients in the head. Wait...genocidal xenophobia is encoded into their religion, did someone say? They've been going on about "Amalek", have they? If somebody wants to mention the IRM's charter...fine. All the more reason for hailing the PFLP who were right about Oslo and want one person one vote in a secular state. Many Jews want this, e.g. Antony Loewenstein, author of "The Palestine Laboratory".
As for "apartheid", this is not apartheid. The white supremacist regime in South Africa did not bomb the bantustans to shit. This is genocide.
What has upped my level of scaredness recently has been the realisation that much of the fascist violence on the West Bank seems to be being orchestrated by Chabad.
People disagree about the meaning of the word "fascism", and it's to be noted that the German national socialists didn't call themselves "fascists" - they saw the Italians as inferior - but in any decent definition there's surely got to be the cooperation of official state thugs and non-state thugs, at least in the early period before it goes super-totalitarian, and that's exactly what the position is on the West Bank.
One more point - on the emigration of affluent Brits - in the last year two of my friends have confirmed their departure: one to Provence, the other to Thailand. It really is happening. People are fucking off, and these are all prosperous net tax positive people for the UK, one in his 40s with decades of good earning ahead
Britain is driving away the affluent Brits (let alone the non doms) and replacing them with Nigerian nurses with fake qualifications and Bangladeshi students that murder their dependant wives
Are you having a bad day? Do you have a hangover?
No, why? I'm in a jolly good mood. It's a beautiful spring day, I have some enjoyable work to do. I'm just being honest about the State of the Nation, and the increasing appeal of foreign parts to more mobile Brits (and non doms). Britain is becoming quite dystopian (the weather doesn't help). People will not pay high taxes to live in dystopia
Nor is this a partisan thing. Much of the blame for this lies with the Tories, they have been economically inept, and pathetically leftwing - while saying naff rightwing things, and it was them that turned on the migration taps to an insane 1.4 MILLION in two years. I despise them for it and I hope they are destroyed in the election. Fuck em
Spain has had large-scale immigration...mostly white.
Is it the fraudulent Nigerians and homicidal Bangladeshis you don't like or, when it comes down to it, the proles, horrible smelly proles of whatever colour? As a check, imagine being surrounded by born and bred lilywhite Londoners, with so much Thames blood flowing in their veins that they've rarely left their city of birth, all saying "Gorblimey mate" and how much they admire the Queen Mother and the Kray Twins. Less scary or about the same?
Much less scary, or, rather, much less "alien". I miss the old white cockney London. It was still very noticeable when I was first here, indeed it prevailed until the late 1990s. The demographic stats show this
There is a tipping point, to my mind, where a great city goes from being fascinatingly diverse and vibrant, with lots of different communities but still one big welcoming host community - in London's case, white Brits (and I liked that vibrant, diverse London) - and then you cross a line where the host community is no longer the majority and something profound changes. Whte Brits are in a minority in London now. I find this regrettable, I am sure the French might feel the same about Paris or the Nigerians about Lagos or the Japanese about Tokyo or the Papua New Guineans about Port Moresby, so it's not reacism, it is preferring your own people in your own city, which is entirely human, like preferring your own family in your own home
And yes, maybe I am just a grumpy old man, or maybe I just like sun too much. But I do think I'm off, I've kinda already left, spending more than half the year abroad as it is, so it won't be a dramatic wrench, I've basically already done it
Another Leaver quits.
No patriotism some people.
Like Nick Clegg, you mean?
I don't think he voted Leave.
No, he solemnly promised us an in/out EU vote in the election of 2010 and then reacted like a scalded cat when we actually had one, and said it was a terrible idea, and then when we had one and voted Out he tried to get it overturned, he tried to cancel democracy, and then when he failed to destroy British democracy he fucked off to California to earn $2m for Facebook, aka EVIL INCORPORATED. That's yer Lib Dems. That's you
So after depriving others from retiring to the sun, you are getting away from the mass immigration and cultural change in this country by immigrating to Spain and causing cultural change there.
I will be paying in Spain, even as a digital nomad, a fuckload more tax than the average "dependant" of a Nigerian nurse or a Bangladeshi student in the UK; as an affluent person I will also be injecting more money into the local economy rather than being a net negative for Spain. I guess that is why Spain has voluntarily devised this scheme, to invite higher tax payers like me
I am sorry you are stuck in a fucking shithole like Leicester, you should have been more persuasive in the referendum
So immigration is good for the Spanish economy, just ignore the cultural change and squeezing out locals.
I've just got a weird feeling that as a late middle aged white thriller writer, of British descent, with a large income and no need to draw on the local economy, I am going to cause a bit less social and cultural trauma to Ibiza, than a large community of rural Pakistanis moving to London or Bristol or Manc, being an economic net negative, and then possibly blowing up a bus. Dunno. Random guess
Thriller writer? What profession is this of which you speak?
Just popped back from a stroll in the gorgeous April sunshine. Not too cold, not too oppressive - is there any place on earth better than Britain when the weather is perfect? I love Britain. I love its sense of space and its intimacy. I love the way it reveres history but doesn't fetishize the past. I love its moss-covered walls and its dandelions. I love its bustling streets and sleepy pubs on rainy afternoons. I love the way you can exchange hellos with total strangers. I love its relaxation and it sense of purpose. I love its people, its landscape and its spirit. I love. I love. I love.
I've been going for walks at dawn to get some exercise this week. There's a place where a path through trees parallels a dual carriageway, and with little traffic and the sun just rising, the dawn chorus from the birds in the trees is quite something. Uplifting, in fact.
Oddly enough, I've not seen much wildlife this week: no owls, deer or foxes; just the ever-present rabbits.
I had forgotten my favourite OJ Simpson fact (probably my favourite fact), OJ Simpson was a sprinter before becoming an American footballer, he took part in a race in 1967 won by a British athlete who ran under 10.2s for the second time that year
That athlete, Ming Campbell
A good friend of mine who is active in politics (to the extent that a Lib Dem can be) used to describe how, in his 60s, Ming would go canvassing in St Andrews. He would have several door knockers asking who wanted to meet the great man and he would literally run from house to house all day until his young door knockers were just out on their feet.
Ming didn’t murder anyone, either.
To be fair, neither did OJ, so said a court of law.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post...
Unless you want to use it as a springboard for, oh I don't know, Prime Minister for example?
That's only happened once so far and under, I'd argue, very special circumstances.
It’s only happened once, but that is one in three of all London mayors becoming PM. Whatever other position has a 33% hit rate for producing future PMs?
Can we send some more of those cobbled together ASRAAM on a van systems ? They’re actually quite good.
Credit where it’s due, well done Germany, the 2024 version is considerably better from them, than the 2022 version was.
The Ukranians do seem rather good at making improvised use of whatever they can get their hands on, and as we discussed yesterday there must be loads of cheap old weapons out there, if people start looking for them. Not to say that the newer weapons systems aren’t also required, as quickly as they can possibly arrive.
C’mon Rishi, do you really want to leave two years of nothingness declinism as your record as PM, or do you want to be the guy who pulled out all the stops to end this war in Ukraine’s favour?
Can we send some more of those cobbled together ASRAAM on a van systems ? They’re actually quite good.
Those ultra-mobile ASRAAM platforms seem to me to be the type of thing that we should not have stopped supplying - just keep them chugging in at one a week or whatever, unless there is some kind of hard limit.
Of course, there is perhaps not enough transparency here for us to know.
I've been out canvassing this lovely april morning in outer London. No-one gives a fuck about Rayner but everyone over 60 is terrified of Sadiq Khan, although a sizeable minority won't vote for tories either under Sunak.
The overall winner is the 'got something more interesting to do than talk politics on a saturday morning' party
Well, I'm over 60 and I'm not - I find the prospect of Susan Hall as Mayor far worse to contemplete.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
I’d love to know who put up the £10k deposit for Binface, someone wealthy but with a sense of humour. I think he’d get my vote!
The problem I would have with Naomi Campbell is the business she is involved in, which I have strong views about.
She works as Co-CEO of a business called Belu, which takes water from the Welsh countryside, puts it in plastic bottles, and ships it round and round the country.
The marketing shtick is that this is environmentally friendly.
The first principle of being environmentally friendly is not to do things which do not need to be done ... prevent. Environmentally friendly drinking water comes out of the tap.
I'd suggest that that business / marketing model is scamming the public on a scale of which Trump would be proud.
Naomi Campbell (as in the former fashion model?) put up Binface’s deposit?
From what I know of this woman, a scummy water company is a long way from the worst enterprise she’s been involved in.
Haha. Bang to Rights !
Natalie Campbell not Naomi Campbell. Apologies to Naomi Campbell.
I'd better correct that because that's how Katie Hopkins came a cropper in a period of just a couple of hours with Jack Monroe - getting a name wrong.
The strange thing is that I went away and read up about Natalie Campbell as I was interested in her policies, knowing nothing about the Belu link - Belu being a company that had an immediate red flag from me from before 2010 when I had first heard of them.
A quick note on Islam and babies: Islam teaches that all human beings are born Muslims (in a "state of purity") and that it is the influence on them by parents who follow another religion or who are atheists that makes them into non-Muslims in later life. It is an extreme crime according to Islam to murder any baby.
I had forgotten my favourite OJ Simpson fact (probably my favourite fact), OJ Simpson was a sprinter before becoming an American footballer, he took part in a race in 1967 won by a British athlete who ran under 10.2s for the second time that year
That athlete, Ming Campbell
A good friend of mine who is active in politics (to the extent that a Lib Dem can be) used to describe how, in his 60s, Ming would go canvassing in St Andrews. He would have several door knockers asking who wanted to meet the great man and he would literally run from house to house all day until his young door knockers were just out on their feet.
Ming didn’t murder anyone, either.
To be fair, neither did OJ, so said a court of law.
And another found him liable for the killing. On a balance of probabilities, it’s reasonable to label him a murderer.
Can we send some more of those cobbled together ASRAAM on a van systems ? They’re actually quite good.
Those ultra-mobile ASRAAM platforms seem to me to be the type of thing that we should not have stopped supplying - just keep them chugging in at one a week or whatever, unless there is some kind of hard limit.
Of course, there is perhaps not enough transparency here for us to know.
A lot of it is to do with production lines, where the makers of the equipment run the line for as long as it takes to make the order, then dismantle it and set up another production line for something else. So if, a decade down the line, we decide to give away half our stocks of System X, there is a long lead time on their replenishment as the supplier is now doing something else and has a list of future projects. Sometimes the capital equipment gets re-used, so it’s not even possible to re-start old lines.
It needs the declaration of a proper war footing by the government, whereby we start building factories on military land and setting up more defence production lines. There’s some evidence of this already happening for 155mm ammunition, but there needs to be a lot more of it, and it should have started at least a year ago.
Can we send some more of those cobbled together ASRAAM on a van systems ? They’re actually quite good.
Those ultra-mobile ASRAAM platforms seem to me to be the type of thing that we should not have stopped supplying - just keep them chugging in at one a week or whatever, unless there is some kind of hard limit.
Of course, there is perhaps not enough transparency here for us to know.
Quite a few of these ground launch systems are derived from testing launchers.
Quite sure that this is leading to a great deal of harumphing about “bypassing the proper development process” in certain quarters.
Comments
No patriotism some people.
Mrs Stodge loathes Khan but is considering voting for Binface whose manifesto is the usual esoteric mix of parody and detailed location of pub urinals (an issue in and of itself). I will vote for Blackie because I'm a boring old partisan. The only other candidate I'd consider is Natalie Campbell who, if she were the Conservative candidate, would be giving Khan real headaches. Her manifesto is the kind of thing the Conservatives should be offering instead of Hall's Trump-lite ravings.
The Mayor isn't really a serious political post but projects the image of London on the global stage. I think both Blackie and Campbell would offer a positive view of London to foreign investors, prospective visitors and others.
The Tories have made a very large error tying themselves to Brexit. This will only work as long as long as it is popular (which it isn't) and people aren't connecting the dots (which they will).
Labour will throw this at them when the Tories go into opposition.
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are now virtually tied
ny times
I find little to disagree with in Campbell's manifesto.
I maintain my view that if Trump couldn't win last time, he isn't going to win this time. He hasn't gained support?
"“We are just stating the truth fully and plainly, but we are also doing that in a way that is unemotional. We are not anyone’s opposition and we’re not anyone’s lap dog,” Times publisher A. G. Sulzberger said as part of an interview with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism published Monday.
“We are going to continue to report fully and fairly, not just on Donald Trump but also on President Joe Biden. He is a historically unpopular incumbent and the oldest man to ever hold this office. We’ve reported on both of those realities extensively, and the White House has been extremely upset about it.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4477132-ny-times-publisher-white-house-extremely-upset-about-coverage-of-biden-age/
The trouble London Conservatives have is that their support has shrunk to the point where it's dominated by pessimism and people who object to London as an idea. And then you get Susan Hall.
I found Blackie’s attack on Khan’s TfL fare freeze a bit of an eyebrow raiser. I can’t really see the political logic of it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/upshot/biden-polls-black-voters.html
Assuming Khan doesn't run again in 2028 (I just wonder if he'll jump ship if there is a by-election in a safe London seat), who would be the Labour candidate? Who would be the Conservative candidate?
The Redfield & Wilton GE poll for London had Labour ahead 51-23 which, while huge, is only a 6% swing on 2019. The truth is London is basically a centre-left city and the demographics mean there simply aren't enough older Conservative voters in the outer surburbs. Any Conservative has got to be able to reach across the political spectrum (Boris did but he was helped by fighting Ken Livingstone twice).
On the topic of London, British-born white people are likely in fact still in the majority in London, but as discussed previoisly here o PB,, due to the poorly phrased and made explicit terms of the census, many British people of Continental European ancestry are not putting their nationality as White British., thnking that means only Anglo-Saxon, Celtic etc. This should be made clear on the Census, as British has in fact been a civic rather than ethnic category since 1707.
A more liberal Johnson type character would be able to attack Khan on his record but Hall isn't really very good at that. Ironically I wonder if Saun Bailey might be doing better this time around.
The other side of this is approximately £160 million of revenue for TfL is lost through fare evasion which is endemic at some stations and on some bus routes. If one in every six journeys is being made fraudulently you'd argue, I think, spending more on catching fare dodgers might be a more popular policy move.
Held by them.
Against Durham.
So it's banning relatives of those who say things you don't like now. Good job the IDF wasn't involved or Dr Sitta might have had had his transport rocketed.
It was rather amusing to see him get a BBC London news slot yesterday to launch his manifesto, thanks to the rules around broadcaster impartiality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBM2gwJ4luE
He wants to make Thames Water execs swim in the river, and wants to rename London Bridge, Phoebe Waller Bridge.
It's interesting that imports/exports are not as unbalanced as might be expected.
On current electricity demand, which is low at under 30GW, we are importing 14% and exporting 6% - 3% each to Ireland and Norway. That latter is interesting.
* Another thing not done when it needed to done by Governments since, but we know that. Since Macron's Govt used cutting-off electricity as a political threat during Brexit negotiations, that has not been well addressed either.
As I expected it would be, it turns out that the conference was going to be a long line of anti-Semites spewing their bile, and when the first terrorist supporter banned from Germany turned up instead by video link, the police had seen enough and shut the event down.
The organisers can just thank their lucky stars that we couldn't see it in Scotland. If we could Police Scotland would have been all over them in months!
She works as Co-CEO of a business called Belu, which takes water from the Welsh countryside, puts it in plastic bottles, and ships it round and round the country.
The marketing shtick is that this is environmentally friendly.
The first principle of being environmentally friendly is not to do things which do not need to be done ... prevent. Environmentally friendly drinking water comes out of the tap.
I'd suggest that that business / marketing model is scamming the public on a fairly monumental scale.
Boris Johnson? It's complicated and yet it isn't.
He worked schemed and manoeuvred for more than 20 years to become Conservative leader and then Prime Minister. When he was a journalist he was espousing the Conservative line during the zenith of Blair and when he became London Mayor, he was briefly the senior elected Conservative politician.
The self-promotion and image development belies the notion of being a lazy individual - he's not. He will work hard on things he cares about but less so on other issues.
He finally became Prime Minister with a sizeable majority, a party in thrall to him and a new set of believers in the north and midlands who could have kept him in power for longer than Thatcher and yet...
Not quite the same as being brought down by two tarts but a microscopic virus was the last thing he wanted or needed. Instead of presiding over an optimistic, cheery, upbeat Britain in the 2020s he had to lock us all down and showed that while he had levitas in abundance, gravitas was sorely lacking. He does well in a war type situation (Ukraine) but you can't argue or reason with a virus and the measures he had to take (against his better nature) fundamentally changed the psychological and cultural mood.
He found the job of Prime Minister not what he expected - to be cheerleader-in-chief for the country - and what he had to do wasn't what he wanted to do.
The irony was having worked for so long to get where he wanted he found it wasn't what he expected or in the end wanted. Having been successful for so long, he found failure hard to swallow (that's true of many politicians) and he found the popularity and optimism he wanted to engender just wasn't there in pandemic and post-pandemic Britain.
All that said, his support for Ukraine in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion stands as a monument to his better nature - he's not a bad man by any stretch, foolish, self centred, perhaps naive at times but many of us have those traits often in abundance. I'd happily have a drink with him anytime and I think he'd be good company on the right day as he's incredibly knowledgeable on a range of topics but as Prime Minister, no.
And you had a problem with this? Well, its novel, I'll give you that.
I am sorry you are stuck in a fucking shithole like Leicester, you should have been more persuasive in the referendum
I had forgotten my favourite OJ Simpson fact (probably my favourite fact), OJ Simpson was a sprinter before becoming an American footballer, he took part in a race in 1967 won by a British athlete who ran under 10.2s for the second time that year
That athlete, Ming Campbell
From what I know of this woman, a scummy water company is a long way from the worst enterprise she’s been involved in.
Mods, feel free to delete my last post!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/13/judge-blocks-police-ban-on-hamas-is-terrorist-banner-man/
But Brexit he basically caused in the first place and then ran away.
He’s a coward. He always runs when it gets difficult.
Swings and roundabouts
What on Earth is going to happen when these “Hate Crime” cases start to come up in front of judges? Presumably it will get to a point where the judge will say that on a narrow point of law the verdict must be guilty, but the law is totally unfair and there is leave given to appeal, and we quickly end up with a case in front of the Supreme Court who can knock the whole thing down?
He supported Ukraine because he thought Churchill would have.
If he thought Churchill would have left them to die, so would he...
Reporting Biden’s negatives is entirely reasonable - indeed essential - for good journalism. But their coverage has been anything but neutral as far as he’s concerned. It’s possible, of course, that they’re just not very good at their job.
See Northern Ireland.
They end up needing the enemy. The one they have become.
To me, rain on green, rolling hills can be pleasant and part of the cycle of life. Given the invention of things like Gortex, what’s the problem?
There's still a vast exposure to abandonment of facilities in UK, er sorry, Scottish, waters.
Natalie Campbell not Naomi Campbell. Apologies to Naomi Campbell.
I'd better correct that because that's how Katie Hopkins came a cropper in a period of just a couple of hours with Jack Monroe - getting a name wrong.
Delivery will be initiated immediately.
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1779141789678440782
Can we send some more of those cobbled together ASRAAM on a van systems ? They’re actually quite good.
As for "apartheid", this is not apartheid. The white supremacist regime in South Africa did not bomb the bantustans to shit. This is genocide.
What has upped my level of scaredness recently has been the realisation that much of the fascist violence on the West Bank seems to be being orchestrated by Chabad.
People disagree about the meaning of the word "fascism", and it's to be noted that the German national socialists didn't call themselves "fascists" - they saw the Italians as inferior - but in any decent definition there's surely got to be the cooperation of official state thugs and non-state thugs, at least in the early period before it goes super-totalitarian, and that's exactly what the position is on the West Bank.
Oddly enough, I've not seen much wildlife this week: no owls, deer or foxes; just the ever-present rabbits.
That would come laced with considerable irony.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68805556
The Ukranians do seem rather good at making improvised use of whatever they can get their hands on, and as we discussed yesterday there must be loads of cheap old weapons out there, if people start looking for them. Not to say that the newer weapons systems aren’t also required, as quickly as they can possibly arrive.
C’mon Rishi, do you really want to leave two years of nothingness declinism as your record as PM, or do you want to be the guy who pulled out all the stops to end this war in Ukraine’s favour?
Of course, there is perhaps not enough transparency here for us to know.
And I still typed the wrong name.
On a balance of probabilities, it’s reasonable to label him a murderer.
It needs the declaration of a proper war footing by the government, whereby we start building factories on military land and setting up more defence production lines. There’s some evidence of this already happening for 155mm ammunition, but there needs to be a lot more of it, and it should have started at least a year ago.
Quite sure that this is leading to a great deal of harumphing about “bypassing the proper development process” in certain quarters.