NEW: @BloombergUK Saturday read— Sunak is facing calls from some allies to name the election date to head off a leadership challenge after May 2— Oct/Nov/Dec still the aim. Dec 12 is one date that’s been discussed— but June/July in play as a back-uphttps://t.co/TtF2swGPgm
Comments
Leicester promotion favourites once again? 😈
Therefore I think there’s very little chance of a quick summer election now. He will continue procrastinating until the autumn or early winter, unless he is forced out: which would be even more suicidal by the Conservative Party.
They are in a terrible mess.
No prime minister would do anything like that anyway. The election writs come after the dissolution of Parliament.
Why is that dithering.
Oh of course because you want an election and likely change of government. So what.
on Israeli forces in Gaza:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-soldiers-play-with-gaza-womens-underwear-online-posts-2024-03-28/
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/4/12/weaponising-underwear-genocide-with-a-semi-pornographic-twist
Reuters: "Israeli soldiers play with Gaza women's underwear in online posts"
Al Jazeera: "Weaponising underwear: Genocide with a semi-pornographic twist"
Will someone tell me the word "scum" is not justified here?
It's a bit comedy to everyone but fans.
I will never be able to eat a cornflake again.
If he wants to go sooner then October would be better (still long, but before clocks change).
I can't see any reason besides people's books why it'd be any other month.
Paging Dr Freud...
The big positive is that last time it happened the Tories romped home. And there's a potential explanation for such wishful thinking - it's nearly Xmas and we all get a bit insular and happy.
Also, it's not the last gasp, and it keeps Labour out for longer.
I am really quite miserable that the one good political bet I've had for the last year or so is now scuppered by you attention though!
Sunak is a ditherer. On everything. Everyone in Gov’t knows it and is talking about it openly.
So the real question is, ‘why would this be any different?’ The chances of him actually doing something decisive and seeing it through are extremely remote, especially as he will lose.
Not much fun for the activists though. I did a fair bit of leafleting in December 2019 and it was miserable, wet and dark.
Ipswich deserve to go up.
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2023/01/point-rishi-sunak-prime-minister-purpose
https://www.globalcapital.com/article/2c7z2ohemxtj2a275kpog/sri/green-and-social-bonds-and-loans/sunaks-stumble-mangles-green-gilt-message
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tory-civil-war-erupts-as-rishi-sunak-dithers-over-hs2_uk_651144bfe4b0fb95353aeba8
https://unitedkingdom.quora.com/Did-you-expect-Rishi-Sunak-to-be-so-indecisive-and-just-as-incompetent-as-Liz-Truss?top_ans=123663287
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/16dd1b0/is_sunak_weak/
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/rishi-sunak-indecisive-detail-fixated-allies-admit-clock-ticks-brexit-hospital-housing-pledges-2048452
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/13/sunak-may-be-petulant-but-hes-not-the-first-to-suffer-the-impatience-of-office?ref=upstract.com
- Israel-Gaza war presumably (hopefully) dying down by then
- Ukraine will either be hanging on, or losing to an increasingly cocky Russia
- Inflation will be stable
- Economy probably in moderate growth
- US election will have just happened and will have influenced the UK campaign
- Summer Olympics and Euros been and gone, and largely forgotten
Something else massive will have happened. Just the law of averages. Could be a natural disaster, a financial markets crisis, a revolution, a terrorist attack in Britain, a notable death, a big political scandal. Something. I assume Sunak’s calculation is that any surprise is as likely to be positive for his party as negative.
Only a non-realist thinks there can now be a Conservative victory and in the absence of something bizarre turning up, the realist tories need to be asking themselves what will make for the best platform for recovery? My contention is that the longer this goes on, the lower will be their seat tally. They dropped another 2% in the opinion polls during March alone: https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html
If they go long, and especially if they go for January and (more contentiously) December they risk getting even more hammered than they will otherwise be. That could make their medium and long term recovery all the harder.
Have a nice afternoon everyone
xx
It wouldn't fool anyone, but it's a simple explanation which has an ostensibly non-political logic to it, so easy for candidates to remember and repeat correctly.
Edit: oh, but don’t forget a million households that have had to remortgage at massively higher interest rates between now and then. They definitely won’t be feeling better off than five years ago.
November or December is my bet, and I do think Sunak wants at least 2 years in the job.
He will want a legacy of sorts as well.
A full-term parliament makes sense, logically, it gives more time for recovery, and the shorter days and build up to Christmas rob Starmer somewhat of spotlight and campaign momentum.
It wouldn't surprise me if it happened.
(So far I haven't tried it, but may if I can find a way to buy a single can, rather than a six-pack.)
The only reasons to go sooner are if Something turns up that changes the political weather so that the PM can cut run and do well, or he has to press the nuclear MAD button to repel.internal critics. They both seem unlikely.
So I expect him to hold off on the off chance that something turns up, even if it costs the post-election party an MP or two per week to do so.
So December 19th it is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss
(This bit from her Wikipedia bio impresses me: " After high school, Weiss went to Israel on a Nativ gap year program, helping build a medical clinic for Bedouins in the Negev desert and studying at a feminist yeshiva and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.")
https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter
Blair benefited from a warm 2nd May morning, the birds tweeting, tired partygoers still up as the sun rose over an optimistic land.
On a morning in December, probably grim and damp, the victorious Starmer won’t be basking in the bright rays of Browning’s glad, confident morning. He’ll be emerging into the early light of Hardy’s Woodlanders:
There was now a distinct manifestation of morning in the air, and presently the bleared white visage of a sunless winter day emerged like a dead-born child.
Once upon a time I used to buy, every morning, a copy of a paper called the Independent. It had a good coverage of a somewhat reduced world from the great newspapers, but it was nicely poised in terms of its editorial policy. That newspaper is long gone, and the journalistic space is gone too.
(US politicians can sometimes choose when special elections are held, but even that is rare.)
Petra Nova, 1.5 million tonnes per annum. MHI technology.
I call that demonstrated.
(Other technology providers are also available.)
I still miss that. That and the old style Economist and Scientific American - before both dumbed down.
Rishi Sunak claims “his plan is working" and has been telling us this week the NHS waiting list at the end of February fell by just over 36,000. However the decline could be accounted for by the exclusion in the February figures of just over 36,000 pathway cases (cases where a patient is awaiting treatment).
The other exotic electoral features in foreign systems are the first round and runoff in the French presidential, and of course the lengthy coalition negotiations combined with regular dissolution of parliament that happen in European PR systems like the Netherlands.
I'll forgive Scientific American a little in that the science has become very technical and the readership less educated.
The Economist has always been good apart from any coverage of Economics.
More to follow, subject to funding, with two more clusters (Acorn and Viking) by 2030. Plus expansion of the first two clusters.
The aim is to be capturing and storing 20 million tonnes per annum by 2030. And that's not the end of it - further expansion to follow.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68796369
The Murdoch press and the Mail have barely reported the story and appear to have no interest in exploring what's behind it, unlike the seemingly much more trivial Rayner story.
"Virtually all helium-3 used in industry today is produced from the radioactive decay of tritium, given its very low natural abundance and its very high cost."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Human_production
To repeat, "might". And I will freely admit that it depends on two other developments, one nearly certain and one possible, but not at all certain: lower prices for travel to and from the moon, and commercial fusion power, using the isotope.
(The company pursuing this has said that they might have a working system in as little as ten years.)
Smoke and mirrors.
Or, for that matter, anything at all with 'Intelligence' in the title.
No one in Fusion is really looking at Helium-3. It’s an order of magnitude beyond D-T Fusion and that’s years off, even if ITER works right.
Even if Starship gets launch down to $50 per kilo to LEO, I don’t see Helium-3 from the moon being a big thing.
If nothing else, with the neutron deluge in a D-T reactor, you can make elements in kilos per hour. So a few D-T reactors could make all the Helium-3 you’d ever want.
The kind of CCS they seem to be envisaging is unjustifiably expensive.
It would be far better for both the country's economy and fur helping to address climate change to spend the money on improving the electric grid, and investment in storage projects.
😡😡😡😡😡
His brother used the recipe and set up a rival Kelloggs company that would sell to anyone (yes, they were both called Kelloggs), which became massive. As it happens, others in the same town started making breakfast cereals at the same time, and one of these was my favourite - Grape Nuts, invented by an ex-patient of the sanitorium.
Given the religious context, I can believe the quote...
"His development of a bland diet was driven in part by the Adventist goal of reducing sexual stimulation.[37]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13304429/EXCLUSIVE-VIDEO-Liz-Truss-truth-relationship-Kwasi-Kwarteng-Watch-Andrew-Pierce-ask-former-prime-minister-Mail-Reaction.html
"The police and ambulance staging outside Westfield Bondi Junction would have been severely impacted by bike lanes which had been proposed for the area. The Eastern Suburbs is a heavily congested area which impacts ambo arrival and transport. This will be a first responder case study for years."
https://x.com/VoteLewko/status/1779048501395263845
"Eat your Wheaties - look what Wheaties did for Bruce Jenner!"
Why the Cost of Carbon Capture and Storage Remains Persistently High
https://www.iisd.org/articles/deep-dive/why-carbon-capture-storage-cost-remains-high
Like, OK, 300,000 are dead and Russia has laid waste to most of east Ukraine and it will possibly turn into World War Three but surely there could be at least one pop-up falafel stall? Is that so hard? Or a tofu buffet in a tent?
Yay!