AI fakes, abuse and misinformation pushed to young voters on TikTok ... Videos which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views have promoted unfounded rumours that a major scandal prompted Rishi Sunak to call an early election and the baseless claim that Sir Keir Starmer was responsible for the failure to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile. ... Other AI-generated videos share misleading claims about [Sunak's] national service pledge for 18-year-olds, suggesting young people would be sent to current war zones in Ukraine and Gaza.
Russian trolls? Bored boys in bedrooms? Party-aligned activists? They don't say. One thing mentioned that we have seen on pb is people missing satire or parody labels. Even if these are not used for plausible deniability, there is a problem.
Anyone stupid enough to rely on Tiktok for their "news" should be denied the vote.
I am neither on TikTok nor Instagram.
I can't imagine too many of the Tories core voters are.
ISTR hearing about 50% of UK adults get their news from tiktok.
I remember being dumbfounded a few years back when discussing facebook with an outwardly intelligent family member - she's an academic at Cambridge University - who told me facebook was her main source of news: essentially like minded individuals whipping each other up into paroxysms of outrage. I don't think any one political bloc has a monopoly on this.
An astonishing number of people get most of their news from less-than-mainstream sources, where rules on elections generally aren’t enforceable outside of posts by official accounts of parties and candidates.
It’s bad enough the rest of the time, with algorithms seemingly designed to keep people angry and engaged, but there’s going to be all sorts of people, including foreign state actors, with a keen interest in spreading disinformation in the run up to an election.
Remember that the Russians and Chinese really don’t care who wins, only that the polarisation is amplified and people see ‘the other side’ winning as an existential threat to the country. This is pretty much where the US is now, with freedom of speech protections being taken advantage of to spread lies, and two political halves of the country hating each other.
The thing I don't get about the US - is that apart from being on TV and attacking lower than anyone else could get away with Trump really isn't that good as a businessman or politician...
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
Fair summary. She'd be the "please ourselves" candidate in the leadership election.
That's not an entirely silly way for a party to go after a big defeat. As with Susan Hall in London, she probably has a highish floor and she stops further drift of voters to the right. It's not a winning strategy, but it might be the best survival strategy.
Important caveat though. A leader who does this has to be self-aware that their job is to keep the party on life support until an actual PM-in-waiting emerges. And humble enough hand over to someone different to themselves. Michael Howard is probably the best recent example of this. I'm not sure KB is like that, though she may surprise us.
If Labour win as big as the polls show, the Conservatives will be utterly irrelevant to anything that happens over the next five years. Is talking amongst themselves the best strategy for them?
AI fakes, abuse and misinformation pushed to young voters on TikTok ... Videos which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views have promoted unfounded rumours that a major scandal prompted Rishi Sunak to call an early election and the baseless claim that Sir Keir Starmer was responsible for the failure to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile. ... Other AI-generated videos share misleading claims about [Sunak's] national service pledge for 18-year-olds, suggesting young people would be sent to current war zones in Ukraine and Gaza.
Russian trolls? Bored boys in bedrooms? Party-aligned activists? They don't say. One thing mentioned that we have seen on pb is people missing satire or parody labels. Even if these are not used for plausible deniability, there is a problem.
Anyone stupid enough to rely on Tiktok for their "news" should be denied the vote.
I am neither on TikTok nor Instagram.
I can't imagine too many of the Tories core voters are.
ISTR hearing about 50% of UK adults get their news from tiktok.
I remember being dumbfounded a few years back when discussing facebook with an outwardly intelligent family member - she's an academic at Cambridge University - who told me facebook was her main source of news: essentially like minded individuals whipping each other up into paroxysms of outrage. I don't think any one political bloc has a monopoly on this.
But that is itself a sign of stupidity - limiting your news sources in this way. So she’s not that clever
There’s an interesting debate on TwiX at the moment which purports to show men are significantly cleverer than women, on average, because men are inherently more curious (there is much data to back this up). It makes sense from one perspective as curiosity is a form of intellectual risk - if you are curious you take a risk as you are going to encounter facts and news stories you do not like, which challenge your world view; men are known to take more risks, women are risk averse (for good evolutionary reasons) therefore women are less curious, therefore less intelligent and less well informed
I’m not sure I believe this proves men are smarter - I see evidence pointing the other way as well. But I do believe intellectual risk/curiosity is a crucial metric of intelligence. And a lot of apparently smart people lack it. They don’t want to know, they get all their facts from friends on Facebook. So they are much stupider than they appear
We see it here all the time. We see it also in people who refuse to travel. They are incurious about the world or scared of the risks entailed in seeing it. They are stupid in quite important ways
What's the definition of intelligence that we begin the discussion from? In my experience, for example, women generally tend to be more emotionally intelligent than men. There is a lot of curiosity involved in taking the time to understand and empathise with other people's emotions. But it may be a type of curiosity that men find far less interesting.
AI fakes, abuse and misinformation pushed to young voters on TikTok ... Videos which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views have promoted unfounded rumours that a major scandal prompted Rishi Sunak to call an early election and the baseless claim that Sir Keir Starmer was responsible for the failure to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile. ... Other AI-generated videos share misleading claims about [Sunak's] national service pledge for 18-year-olds, suggesting young people would be sent to current war zones in Ukraine and Gaza.
Russian trolls? Bored boys in bedrooms? Party-aligned activists? They don't say. One thing mentioned that we have seen on pb is people missing satire or parody labels. Even if these are not used for plausible deniability, there is a problem.
Anyone stupid enough to rely on Tiktok for their "news" should be denied the vote.
I am neither on TikTok nor Instagram.
I can't imagine too many of the Tories core voters are.
ISTR hearing about 50% of UK adults get their news from tiktok.
I remember being dumbfounded a few years back when discussing facebook with an outwardly intelligent family member - she's an academic at Cambridge University - who told me facebook was her main source of news: essentially like minded individuals whipping each other up into paroxysms of outrage. I don't think any one political bloc has a monopoly on this.
An astonishing number of people get most of their news from less-than-mainstream sources, where rules on elections generally aren’t enforceable outside of posts by official accounts of parties and candidates.
It’s bad enough the rest of the time, with algorithms seemingly designed to keep people angry and engaged, but there’s going to be all sorts of people, including foreign state actors, with a keen interest in spreading disinformation in the run up to an election.
Remember that the Russians and Chinese really don’t care who wins, only that the polarisation is amplified and people see ‘the other side’ winning as an existential threat to the country. This is pretty much where the US is now, with freedom of speech protections being taken advantage of to spread lies, and two political halves of the country hating each other.
The thing I don't get about the US - is that apart from being on TV and attacking lower than anyone else could get away with Trump really isn't that good as a businessman or politician...
He became a billionaire several times over and also became the president of the United States of America - literally the most powerful human on the planet, and the most important politician anywhere on earth
I mean, if that is failure, what counts as success in your eyes? Perhaps if he made sixteen trillion trillion dollars and bought all of China for his niece? Politically, maybe he should have aimed higher? Intergalactic warlord of the andromeda cluster? Supreme deity? What?
Understanding media consumption is an important part of my job so the news about news consumption is not news iyswim.
As with all surveys there is a lot nuance lost in these things. Social media may be where people think they are getting their news, but it will usually be from actual journalistic sources posting (or linking from) there, rather than 50% of adults being beamed broadcasts from TikTok Politburo Central.
Also worth noting that people tend to trust social media significantly less than traditional sources. We can go O Tempora O Mores about it but it is what it is; we’re living through a communications revolution which is as significant as the industrial one - but the levers of the human mind haven’t particularly changed much since the Sophists.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
But treating Trans people as nothing but bad actors is a core vote policy - because the nuance that only some Trans people are bad actors requires a level of attention to detail that is beyond their core vote (and seemingly always beyond the capability of the politicians getting involved in this discussion).
Not sure about that necessarily, but unfortunately modern political attention span isn’t compatible with nuance so on complex issues no side tends to cover themselves in glory.
AI fakes, abuse and misinformation pushed to young voters on TikTok ... Videos which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views have promoted unfounded rumours that a major scandal prompted Rishi Sunak to call an early election and the baseless claim that Sir Keir Starmer was responsible for the failure to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile. ... Other AI-generated videos share misleading claims about [Sunak's] national service pledge for 18-year-olds, suggesting young people would be sent to current war zones in Ukraine and Gaza.
Russian trolls? Bored boys in bedrooms? Party-aligned activists? They don't say. One thing mentioned that we have seen on pb is people missing satire or parody labels. Even if these are not used for plausible deniability, there is a problem.
Anyone stupid enough to rely on Tiktok for their "news" should be denied the vote.
I am neither on TikTok nor Instagram.
I can't imagine too many of the Tories core voters are.
ISTR hearing about 50% of UK adults get their news from tiktok.
I remember being dumbfounded a few years back when discussing facebook with an outwardly intelligent family member - she's an academic at Cambridge University - who told me facebook was her main source of news: essentially like minded individuals whipping each other up into paroxysms of outrage. I don't think any one political bloc has a monopoly on this.
But that is itself a sign of stupidity - limiting your news sources in this way. So she’s not that clever
There’s an interesting debate on TwiX at the moment which purports to show men are significantly cleverer than women, on average, because men are inherently more curious (there is much data to back this up). It makes sense from one perspective as curiosity is a form of intellectual risk - if you are curious you take a risk as you are going to encounter facts and news stories you do not like, which challenge your world view; men are known to take more risks, women are risk averse (for good evolutionary reasons) therefore women are less curious, therefore less intelligent and less well informed
I’m not sure I believe this proves men are smarter - I see evidence pointing the other way as well. But I do believe intellectual risk/curiosity is a crucial metric of intelligence. And a lot of apparently smart people lack it. They don’t want to know, they get all their facts from friends on Facebook. So they are much stupider than they appear
We see it here all the time. We see it also in people who refuse to travel. They are incurious about the world or scared of the risks entailed in seeing it. They are stupid in quite important ways
What's the definition of intelligence that we begin the discussion from? In my experience, for example, women generally tend to be more emotionally intelligent than men. There is a lot of curiosity involved in taking the time to understand and empathise with other people's emotions. But it may be a type of curiosity that men find far less interesting.
Yes, I’d agree with that. Women are emotionally and socially more curious - which can be just as valuable (sometimes more so) than scientific/political/intellectual curiosity
So while I see merit in the risk/curiosity/intelligence overlap-argument - I’m hesitant (as I say) to see this as proof of male superiority overall
But people who just piss about on Facebook and never travel are dumb fucks. That is also true
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
A mystery to me too. She also seems to have quite a short fuse.
After the notoriously thin-skinned Sunak they could really do with someone who can brush off the needling. To quote TTOI ‘It’s like telling the school bully “if you tickle me I’ll wet myself’” - they’ll just be constantly wound up.
Politics requires some odd skill sets and it is quite possible to be an excellent Minister and a terrible politician, and vice versa - the competencies for both things are not always complementary.
As we enter week 3 of the general election campaign, here's what the Tories are still not talking about - the cost of living, the NHS, public services, housing, transport, defence, sewage in our rives and seas ...
They have nothing to say on them after 14 years in power.
So far, I haven't seen Labour say anything on them either, but that may just be because I've been busy.
The Liberal Democrats have been talking about sewage and doing press stunts.
This campaign really has been depressing for those wanting solutions to our problems.
Labour had a big NHS day, but it was somewhat overshadowed by the Diane Abbott farrago. They're banging on about defence today.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
But treating Trans people as nothing but bad actors is a core vote policy - because the nuance that only some Trans people are bad actors requires a level of attention to detail that is beyond their core vote (and seemingly always beyond the capability of the politicians getting involved in this discussion).
Not sure about that necessarily, but unfortunately modern political attention span isn’t compatible with nuance so on complex issues no side tends to cover themselves in glory.
oh that's definitely true, but the Tory core vote is old people who really don't like trans people (we saw it a few times in church were various people have been chased away from other churches).
The irony there is that the highest church in the deanery is by far the most welcoming...
AI fakes, abuse and misinformation pushed to young voters on TikTok ... Videos which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views have promoted unfounded rumours that a major scandal prompted Rishi Sunak to call an early election and the baseless claim that Sir Keir Starmer was responsible for the failure to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile. ... Other AI-generated videos share misleading claims about [Sunak's] national service pledge for 18-year-olds, suggesting young people would be sent to current war zones in Ukraine and Gaza.
Russian trolls? Bored boys in bedrooms? Party-aligned activists? They don't say. One thing mentioned that we have seen on pb is people missing satire or parody labels. Even if these are not used for plausible deniability, there is a problem.
Anyone stupid enough to rely on Tiktok for their "news" should be denied the vote.
I am neither on TikTok nor Instagram.
I can't imagine too many of the Tories core voters are.
ISTR hearing about 50% of UK adults get their news from tiktok.
I remember being dumbfounded a few years back when discussing facebook with an outwardly intelligent family member - she's an academic at Cambridge University - who told me facebook was her main source of news: essentially like minded individuals whipping each other up into paroxysms of outrage. I don't think any one political bloc has a monopoly on this.
An astonishing number of people get most of their news from less-than-mainstream sources, where rules on elections generally aren’t enforceable outside of posts by official accounts of parties and candidates.
It’s bad enough the rest of the time, with algorithms seemingly designed to keep people angry and engaged, but there’s going to be all sorts of people, including foreign state actors, with a keen interest in spreading disinformation in the run up to an election.
Remember that the Russians and Chinese really don’t care who wins, only that the polarisation is amplified and people see ‘the other side’ winning as an existential threat to the country. This is pretty much where the US is now, with freedom of speech protections being taken advantage of to spread lies, and two political halves of the country hating each other.
The thing I don't get about the US - is that apart from being on TV and attacking lower than anyone else could get away with Trump really isn't that good as a businessman or politician...
He became a billionaire several times over and also became the president of the United States of America - literally the most powerful human on the planet, and the most important politician anywhere on earth
I mean, if that is failure, what counts as success in your eyes? Perhaps if he made sixteen trillion trillion dollars and bought all of China for his niece? Politically, maybe he should have aimed higher? Intergalactic warlord of the andromeda cluster? Supreme deity? What?
Perhaps if he just made a billion once and didn't keep losing all his money so he'd have to remake it?
As we enter week 3 of the general election campaign, here's what the Tories are still not talking about - the cost of living, the NHS, public services, housing, transport, defence, sewage in our rives and seas ...
They have nothing to say on them after 14 years in power.
So far, I haven't seen Labour say anything on them either, but that may just be because I've been busy.
The Liberal Democrats have been talking about sewage and doing press stunts.
This campaign really has been depressing for those wanting solutions to our problems.
Labour had a big NHS day, but it was somewhat overshadowed by the Diane Abbott farrago. They're banging on about defence today.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
A mystery to me too. She also seems to have quite a short fuse.
After the notoriously thin-skinned Sunak they could really do with someone who can brush off the needling. To quote TTOI ‘It’s like telling the school bully “if you tickle me I’ll wet myself’” - they’ll just be constantly wound up.
Politics requires some odd skill sets and it is quite possible to be an excellent Minister and a terrible politician, and vice versa - the competencies for both things are not always complementary.
Is there any evidence that Badenoch is good at either role ?
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
But treating Trans people as nothing but bad actors is a core vote policy - because the nuance that only some Trans people are bad actors requires a level of attention to detail that is beyond their core vote (and seemingly always beyond the capability of the politicians getting involved in this discussion).
Not sure about that necessarily, but unfortunately modern political attention span isn’t compatible with nuance so on complex issues no side tends to cover themselves in glory.
oh that's definitely true, but the Tory core vote is old people who really don't like trans people (we saw it a few times in church were various people have been chased away from other churches).
The irony there is that the highest church in the deanery is by far the most welcoming...
I don’t really see how banging on about gendy nootch toilets wins anyone over though.
It wasn’t trans people that made my mortgage payments go up by £300 per month*
(*not actually mine, as I sensibly locked our interest for five years, against domestic protestations I might add. But it is the experience of many, including a lot of people to whom the Cons should be appealing).
AI fakes, abuse and misinformation pushed to young voters on TikTok ... Videos which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views have promoted unfounded rumours that a major scandal prompted Rishi Sunak to call an early election and the baseless claim that Sir Keir Starmer was responsible for the failure to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile. ... Other AI-generated videos share misleading claims about [Sunak's] national service pledge for 18-year-olds, suggesting young people would be sent to current war zones in Ukraine and Gaza.
Russian trolls? Bored boys in bedrooms? Party-aligned activists? They don't say. One thing mentioned that we have seen on pb is people missing satire or parody labels. Even if these are not used for plausible deniability, there is a problem.
We have created a very dangerous weapon and handed it to our enemies.
But our politicians fail to understand
Part of the problem is Gresham's law - bad money drives out good - but another thing is in play too, which could be resolved with a bit of courage. People attach themselves to the worst of political dross in part because they have stopped listening to politicians themselves. This is very simply because they are, generically, not worth listening to.
Very simply, the dross of social media, while deadly and false, actually addresses issues and answers questions.
It's years since Oborne wrote 'The rise of political lying'. Politicians lie in a boring, unimaginative and complex way. Social media lies in attractive and comprehensible ways.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
A mystery to me too. She also seems to have quite a short fuse.
After the notoriously thin-skinned Sunak they could really do with someone who can brush off the needling. To quote TTOI ‘It’s like telling the school bully “if you tickle me I’ll wet myself’” - they’ll just be constantly wound up.
Politics requires some odd skill sets and it is quite possible to be an excellent Minister and a terrible politician, and vice versa - the competencies for both things are not always complementary.
Is there any evidence that Badenoch is good at either role ?
No. But that’s what happens when you reach the bottom of the barrel, rot the base away and tunnel further down beyond that.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
But treating Trans people as nothing but bad actors is a core vote policy - because the nuance that only some Trans people are bad actors requires a level of attention to detail that is beyond their core vote (and seemingly always beyond the capability of the politicians getting involved in this discussion).
Not sure about that necessarily, but unfortunately modern political attention span isn’t compatible with nuance so on complex issues no side tends to cover themselves in glory.
oh that's definitely true, but the Tory core vote is old people who really don't like trans people (we saw it a few times in church were various people have been chased away from other churches).
The irony there is that the highest church in the deanery is by far the most welcoming...
I don’t really see how banging on about gendy nootch toilets wins anyone over though.
It wasn’t trans people that made my mortgage payments go up by £300 per month*
(*not actually mine, as I sensibly locked our interest for five years, against domestic protestations I might add. But it is the experience of many, including a lot of people to whom the Cons should be appealing).
We are talking the Tory party core voter base here - i.e. 65+ with the mortgage paid off and plenty of money for multiple cruises a year...
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I suspect that current Tory voters are actually quite reasonable on social matters. They don't like the look of Labour but certainly do not like the look of Reform either. Rich, retired RSPB member types, perhaps?
If the polling is correct, the culture warriors have already abandoned them for Reform.
Another (overlapping) group would be RNLI supporters, who have not forgotten the hounding of the RNLI over rescuing boat people, and the abuse of the Parliamentary process to threaten the RNLI.
Edit: ditto National Trust. When a Victorian mansion builder gets denounced 140 years later on PB for displaying a statue of a freed slave in a special alcove ...
Good morning
I would agree with @Eabhal re the definition of conservative supporters, though in my case I am not rich nor a member of the RSPB though was very active in our Community including being a retired chair of the PTA, group Scout Council, and Community Centre Committee plus having been involved with various charities raising tens of thousands for local communities and underprivileged children.
As far as the RNLI are concerned, it should be remembered that as recently as this weekend our two boats were called out at 4.00am to search for a missing 57 year old woman whose body they sadly recovered from the sea, and the crews were visibly upset about the shout.
They are not interested in politics or those who try to make them a political football
This pretrial ruling is far dodgier than anything in the Trump trial.
Hunter Biden is (IMO) pretty likely guilty, but he's entitled to due process. Note that the judge who is ignoring material inconsistencies in the prosecution's documents is the same one who vacated Biden's plea bargain solely on the basis of inconsistent paperwork.
As we enter week 3 of the general election campaign, here's what the Tories are still not talking about - the cost of living, the NHS, public services, housing, transport, defence, sewage in our rives and seas ...
They have nothing to say on them after 14 years in power.
So far, I haven't seen Labour say anything on them either, but that may just be because I've been busy.
The Liberal Democrats have been talking about sewage and doing press stunts.
This campaign really has been depressing for those wanting solutions to our problems.
Labour had a big NHS day, but it was somewhat overshadowed by the Diane Abbott farrago. They're banging on about defence today.
I am happy to debate the trans issue but surely politically the Tories going on about this, this week, shows they’ve completely given up. Aren’t there bigger issues?
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
But treating Trans people as nothing but bad actors is a core vote policy - because the nuance that only some Trans people are bad actors requires a level of attention to detail that is beyond their core vote (and seemingly always beyond the capability of the politicians getting involved in this discussion).
Not sure about that necessarily, but unfortunately modern political attention span isn’t compatible with nuance so on complex issues no side tends to cover themselves in glory.
oh that's definitely true, but the Tory core vote is old people who really don't like trans people (we saw it a few times in church were various people have been chased away from other churches).
The irony there is that the highest church in the deanery is by far the most welcoming...
I don’t really see how banging on about gendy nootch toilets wins anyone over though.
It wasn’t trans people that made my mortgage payments go up by £300 per month*
(*not actually mine, as I sensibly locked our interest for five years, against domestic protestations I might add. But it is the experience of many, including a lot of people to whom the Cons should be appealing).
The thing is that yes, if your offer in the core policy areas which are usually economic or economic adjacent aren’t good or your record is such that nobody is paying attention then the peripheral policy doesn’t help. Peripheral policy helps to seal the deal if the core stuff is convincing. The Tories core offer isn’t convincing and so the peripheral becomes more important to them, not because they can win an election off it but because they can try to shape the defeat by convincing those voters for whom certain issues are higher up the ladder of salience.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
But treating Trans people as nothing but bad actors is a core vote policy - because the nuance that only some Trans people are bad actors requires a level of attention to detail that is beyond their core vote (and seemingly always beyond the capability of the politicians getting involved in this discussion).
Not sure about that necessarily, but unfortunately modern political attention span isn’t compatible with nuance so on complex issues no side tends to cover themselves in glory.
oh that's definitely true, but the Tory core vote is old people who really don't like trans people (we saw it a few times in church were various people have been chased away from other churches).
The irony there is that the highest church in the deanery is by far the most welcoming...
I don’t really see how banging on about gendy nootch toilets wins anyone over though.
It wasn’t trans people that made my mortgage payments go up by £300 per month*
(*not actually mine, as I sensibly locked our interest for five years, against domestic protestations I might add. But it is the experience of many, including a lot of people to whom the Cons should be appealing).
We are talking the Tory party core voter base here - i.e. 65+ with the mortgage paid off and plenty of money for multiple cruises a year...
This is true, and it is genuinely shameful.
I am not a Thatcher fan; far from it. But she wanted a better country, and would not retreat to appealing solely to a core base. The Tories are in a terrible place at the moment; I think a shift happened really under Johnson where actual running of the country took second place to optics and voter appeal - where winning is all, and the actual point of politics is forgotten and it simply becomes a kind of terrible sport.
This is now reaching its natural conclusion with a complete abandonment of the young and the working age to drag as many pensioners into the polling booth as possible.
I am happy to debate the trans issue but surely politically the Tories going on about this, this week, shows they’ve completely given up. Aren’t there bigger issues?
Are there any bigger issues where the Tory party are on the right side of the debate and will get them a few more votes?
The issue is that most bigger issues are things the Tory party have been in control of for the past 14 years so the default response to say we will build 100 new GP surgeries is what stopped you doing so 2 weeks ago?
Thought-provoking header from TLG86. What is the east-west divide?
The west is richer than the east. Imagine a line running down the middle of England through the Pennines then following the West Coast Mainline down to London, continuing through the middle of it and on to the south coast.
We talk about the north south divide a lot - and it does exist, but there’s an east west divide too.
But one can think of Devon or Cornwall or Liverpool or Birmingham or Wales or Glasgow. And I think it is a stretch to say the coast of Sussex or Kent is "west".
AI fakes, abuse and misinformation pushed to young voters on TikTok ... Videos which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views have promoted unfounded rumours that a major scandal prompted Rishi Sunak to call an early election and the baseless claim that Sir Keir Starmer was responsible for the failure to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile. ... Other AI-generated videos share misleading claims about [Sunak's] national service pledge for 18-year-olds, suggesting young people would be sent to current war zones in Ukraine and Gaza.
Russian trolls? Bored boys in bedrooms? Party-aligned activists? They don't say. One thing mentioned that we have seen on pb is people missing satire or parody labels. Even if these are not used for plausible deniability, there is a problem.
We have created a very dangerous weapon and handed it to our enemies.
But our politicians fail to understand
Part of the problem is Gresham's law - bad money drives out good - but another thing is in play too, which could be resolved with a bit of courage. People attach themselves to the worst of political dross in part because they have stopped listening to politicians themselves. This is very simply because they are, generically, not worth listening to.
Very simply, the dross of social media, while deadly and false, actually addresses issues and answers questions.
It's years since Oborne wrote 'The rise of political lying'. Politicians lie in a boring, unimaginative and complex way. Social media lies in attractive and comprehensible ways.
Politicians are to talking as chess is to fighting.
I am happy to debate the trans issue but surely politically the Tories going on about this, this week, shows they’ve completely given up. Aren’t there bigger issues?
Are there any bigger issues where the Tory party are on the right side of the debate and will get them a few more votes?
The issue is that most bigger issues are things the Tory party have been in control of for the past 14 years so the default response to say we will build 100 new GP surgeries is what stopped you doing so 2 weeks ago?
AI fakes, abuse and misinformation pushed to young voters on TikTok ... Videos which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views have promoted unfounded rumours that a major scandal prompted Rishi Sunak to call an early election and the baseless claim that Sir Keir Starmer was responsible for the failure to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile. ... Other AI-generated videos share misleading claims about [Sunak's] national service pledge for 18-year-olds, suggesting young people would be sent to current war zones in Ukraine and Gaza.
Russian trolls? Bored boys in bedrooms? Party-aligned activists? They don't say. One thing mentioned that we have seen on pb is people missing satire or parody labels. Even if these are not used for plausible deniability, there is a problem.
Anyone stupid enough to rely on Tiktok for their "news" should be denied the vote.
I am neither on TikTok nor Instagram.
I can't imagine too many of the Tories core voters are.
ISTR hearing about 50% of UK adults get their news from tiktok.
I remember being dumbfounded a few years back when discussing facebook with an outwardly intelligent family member - she's an academic at Cambridge University - who told me facebook was her main source of news: essentially like minded individuals whipping each other up into paroxysms of outrage. I don't think any one political bloc has a monopoly on this.
But that is itself a sign of stupidity - limiting your news sources in this way. So she’s not that clever
There’s an interesting debate on TwiX at the moment which purports to show men are significantly cleverer than women, on average, because men are inherently more curious (there is much data to back this up). It makes sense from one perspective as curiosity is a form of intellectual risk - if you are curious you take a risk as you are going to encounter facts and news stories you do not like, which challenge your world view; men are known to take more risks, women are risk averse (for good evolutionary reasons) therefore women are less curious, therefore less intelligent and less well informed
I’m not sure I believe this proves men are smarter - I see evidence pointing the other way as well. But I do believe intellectual risk/curiosity is a crucial metric of intelligence. And a lot of apparently smart people lack it. They don’t want to know, they get all their facts from friends on Facebook. So they are much stupider than they appear
We see it here all the time. We see it also in people who refuse to travel. They are incurious about the world or scared of the risks entailed in seeing it. They are stupid in quite important ways
Remember that time you were suckered in by a single tweet about snipers on the rooves of Paris?
Mr. Ghedebrav, sadly, there's a lot of concern generally about style and less over substance. When was the last time the BBC had a main story about the horrendous, debt, deficit, and appallingly high debt interest payments of the UK?
This was exemplified by Johnson. Charismatic, and an empty-headed buffoon. It was an especially atrocious decision by Conservatives given they had the example of Corbyn staring them in the face (and yes, they're not directly the same, Johnson was never a political extremist who would side with Russia over the UK, but the point stands).
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
Each and every member of an identity group can be regarded as identical, sharing the same experiences and same views.
Therefore, based on what is happening in our house, I can confidently say that "the Asian community" is having a lie-in this morning.
Why do the pollsters bother? There can’t be demand for this many polls per day, can there?
I read at one time they were loss leaders. The pollsters don't make their money from political polls, but they it's the way they get their name out, and gives them the respectability needed for other commercial clients.
Now that most are online polls, the cost involved is a fraction of what it used to be, so it's easy to churn them out, and of course this is the one time every few years that people actually pay attention.
Right! I'm going to spend the entire day wandering around the scene of history's most infamous pogrom while reading THE book about that same pogrom, I intend to conclude my day of touring at the same time as I finish the book
Has any other PB-er done this?
Spent the entire day wandering around the scene of history's most infamous pogrom while reading THE book about that same pogrom, then concluding their day of pogrom touring at the same time as they finish the pogrom book?
I suspect the Tories will hold Maidstone. It used to be Ann Widdecombe's seat, is relatively socially conservative and the rural Mallings will be blue.
Macclesfield was Remain though and will likely go Labour on the current national swing
Which is why sentencing is on July 11th - 6 weeks from the date of conviction...
Some thoughts on the Trump trial, especially as I know nothing about the process so would like feedback from anyone who does:
Appeal - He says he is appealing, but doesn't he have to identify grounds for appeal. I presume you can't appeal willy nilly and I assume they were quite careful in avoiding that. I presume he can also appeal the sentence.
Sentence - I understand that a fine is normal for a first offence, but he has shown he doesn't care about that. He has also should complete contempt for the court and the proceedings and shows no remorse. I assume that exacerbates the penalty. Community service would be degrading for him and not as severe as prison so is that likely. I would enjoy seeing him pick up litter.
AI fakes, abuse and misinformation pushed to young voters on TikTok ... Videos which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views have promoted unfounded rumours that a major scandal prompted Rishi Sunak to call an early election and the baseless claim that Sir Keir Starmer was responsible for the failure to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile. ... Other AI-generated videos share misleading claims about [Sunak's] national service pledge for 18-year-olds, suggesting young people would be sent to current war zones in Ukraine and Gaza.
Russian trolls? Bored boys in bedrooms? Party-aligned activists? They don't say. One thing mentioned that we have seen on pb is people missing satire or parody labels. Even if these are not used for plausible deniability, there is a problem.
We have created a very dangerous weapon and handed it to our enemies.
But our politicians fail to understand
Part of the problem is Gresham's law - bad money drives out good - but another thing is in play too, which could be resolved with a bit of courage. People attach themselves to the worst of political dross in part because they have stopped listening to politicians themselves. This is very simply because they are, generically, not worth listening to.
Very simply, the dross of social media, while deadly and false, actually addresses issues and answers questions.
It's years since Oborne wrote 'The rise of political lying'. Politicians lie in a boring, unimaginative and complex way. Social media lies in attractive and comprehensible ways.
Politicians are to talking as chess is to fighting.
The media could help too by interviewing in such a way as to make it harder to lie and evade. Framing questions and exploring the meaning of answers are central arts. Confrontation is almost always of no use.
I am happy to debate the trans issue but surely politically the Tories going on about this, this week, shows they’ve completely given up. Aren’t there bigger issues?
Are there any bigger issues where the Tory party are on the right side of the debate and will get them a few more votes?
The issue is that most bigger issues are things the Tory party have been in control of for the past 14 years so the default response to say we will build 100 new GP surgeries is what stopped you doing so 2 weeks ago?
You highlight the reason why the conservatives are going to lose big time, and it will be the same when they publish their manifesto
However, as far as I am concerned I have dismissed the notion that the conservatives will be relevant for quite sometime, so now Labour have to be pit under the microscope, and despite their insistence everything is costed of course its not and by many many billions
There is a suggestion that Reeves will attack private pensions as this is one area she has not raised as exempt and of course IHT is the other
No matter, tax rises and spending cuts are as certain as PM Starmer by the 5th July
AI fakes, abuse and misinformation pushed to young voters on TikTok ... Videos which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views have promoted unfounded rumours that a major scandal prompted Rishi Sunak to call an early election and the baseless claim that Sir Keir Starmer was responsible for the failure to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile. ... Other AI-generated videos share misleading claims about [Sunak's] national service pledge for 18-year-olds, suggesting young people would be sent to current war zones in Ukraine and Gaza.
Russian trolls? Bored boys in bedrooms? Party-aligned activists? They don't say. One thing mentioned that we have seen on pb is people missing satire or parody labels. Even if these are not used for plausible deniability, there is a problem.
Anyone stupid enough to rely on Tiktok for their "news" should be denied the vote.
I am neither on TikTok nor Instagram.
I can't imagine too many of the Tories core voters are.
ISTR hearing about 50% of UK adults get their news from tiktok.
I remember being dumbfounded a few years back when discussing facebook with an outwardly intelligent family member - she's an academic at Cambridge University - who told me facebook was her main source of news: essentially like minded individuals whipping each other up into paroxysms of outrage. I don't think any one political bloc has a monopoly on this.
An astonishing number of people get most of their news from less-than-mainstream sources, where rules on elections generally aren’t enforceable outside of posts by official accounts of parties and candidates.
It’s bad enough the rest of the time, with algorithms seemingly designed to keep people angry and engaged, but there’s going to be all sorts of people, including foreign state actors, with a keen interest in spreading disinformation in the run up to an election.
Remember that the Russians and Chinese really don’t care who wins, only that the polarisation is amplified and people see ‘the other side’ winning as an existential threat to the country. This is pretty much where the US is now, with freedom of speech protections being taken advantage of to spread lies, and two political halves of the country hating each other.
The thing I don't get about the US - is that apart from being on TV and attacking lower than anyone else could get away with Trump really isn't that good as a businessman or politician...
He’s the sort of businessman and politician that can pretty much only exist in the US, with his brash attitude and constant boasting of his own successes, although I guess Berlusconi in Italy was quite similar back in the day.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
Fair summary. She'd be the "please ourselves" candidate in the leadership election.
That's not an entirely silly way for a party to go after a big defeat. As with Susan Hall in London, she probably has a highish floor and she stops further drift of voters to the right. It's not a winning strategy, but it might be the best survival strategy.
Important caveat though. A leader who does this has to be self-aware that their job is to keep the party on life support until an actual PM-in-waiting emerges. And humble enough hand over to someone different to themselves. Michael Howard is probably the best recent example of this. I'm not sure KB is like that, though she may surprise us.
If Labour win as big as the polls show, the Conservatives will be utterly irrelevant to anything that happens over the next five years. Is talking amongst themselves the best strategy for them?
Depends entirely on how a Labour government performs on the economy. If poorly, big swings can see big swings back
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
I was watching a youtube Warhammer video the other day which, if you can believe it, started talking about identity politics in an interesting way, in the context of geek fandom.
Essentially, I think we're Donald Ducked. Social media, even back to the Usenet days, is a huge engine for creating identity-based groups. The pandemic gave a good kicking to in-person socialisation that would act to balance it.
Identity-based social grouping creates a sense of being an embattled and victimised minority, it damages broader social empathy, and creates an atomised society of mutually antagonistic identity groups.
Which is why sentencing is on July 11th - 6 weeks from the date of conviction...
Some thoughts on the Trump trial, especially as I know nothing about the process so would like feedback from anyone who does:
Appeal - He says he is appealing, but doesn't he have to identify grounds for appeal. I presume you can't appeal willy nilly and I assume they were quite careful in avoiding that. I presume he can also appeal the sentence.
Sentence - I understand that a fine is normal for a first offence, but he has shown he doesn't care about that. He has also should complete contempt for the court and the proceedings and shows no remorse. I assume that exacerbates the penalty. Community service would be degrading for him and not as severe as prison so is that likely. I would enjoy seeing him pick up litter.
Is my understanding of this stuff correct?
I think his grounds for appeal are going to be along the lines of “this was a politically-motivated kangaroo court, with a case brought by a bunch of corrupt Democrat officials, trying to keep the great Donald Trump off the ballot in November”.
Whether he can get anyone who matters to actually agree with him, is a different question.
So Monday is war day in the election. Military war for Labour, culture war for the Conservatives
Kemi Badenoch seems to have been officially anointed minister for culture war. She’s supposed to be Secretary of State for business and trade but has said nothing on that brief during the campaign.
She’s also Minister for Women and Equalities - and has been for 2 years.
AI fakes, abuse and misinformation pushed to young voters on TikTok ... Videos which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views have promoted unfounded rumours that a major scandal prompted Rishi Sunak to call an early election and the baseless claim that Sir Keir Starmer was responsible for the failure to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile. ... Other AI-generated videos share misleading claims about [Sunak's] national service pledge for 18-year-olds, suggesting young people would be sent to current war zones in Ukraine and Gaza.
Russian trolls? Bored boys in bedrooms? Party-aligned activists? They don't say. One thing mentioned that we have seen on pb is people missing satire or parody labels. Even if these are not used for plausible deniability, there is a problem.
We have created a very dangerous weapon and handed it to our enemies.
But our politicians fail to understand
Part of the problem is Gresham's law - bad money drives out good - but another thing is in play too, which could be resolved with a bit of courage. People attach themselves to the worst of political dross in part because they have stopped listening to politicians themselves. This is very simply because they are, generically, not worth listening to.
Very simply, the dross of social media, while deadly and false, actually addresses issues and answers questions.
It's years since Oborne wrote 'The rise of political lying'. Politicians lie in a boring, unimaginative and complex way. Social media lies in attractive and comprehensible ways.
Politicians are to talking as chess is to fighting.
The media could help too by interviewing in such a way as to make it harder to lie and evade. Framing questions and exploring the meaning of answers are central arts. Confrontation is almost always of no use.
The Paxman style of interviewing, fun as it was, might have contained the seeds of its own destruction.
(Though I've also got a horrible feeling that proper political interviews as a mass market thing need a world with 3 or 4 TV channels.)
I suspect the Tories will hold Maidstone. It used to be Ann Widdecombe's seat, is relatively socially conservative and the rural Mallings will be blue.
Macclesfield was Remain though and will likely go Labour on the current national swing
@IanB2 mentioned that the LDs in the past were working Maidstone. I can confirm that. Many years ago during one GE or other I posted here about 2 seats they were targeting in the South East not to win at that election but to develop. I didn't say which for obvious reasons and lots of people went guessing, although they basically came up with obvious targets. They weren't designed to be guessable and I obviously wasn't going to say. The point was these weren't meant to be obvious at the time, but there must have been something that made them good future prospects. A lot of time has passed since then so that is all probably irrelevant now.
Morning all, I've returned to the sanctuary of Norwich for the rest of the campaign. Still no placards up which surprises me, I expect the Greens to push hard here to get a strong second behind Lewis. 3 polls and 2 mrps out today so some yummy data to salivate over and pretend is the actual result innit
So Monday is war day in the election. Military war for Labour, culture war for the Conservatives
Kemi Badenoch seems to have been officially anointed minister for culture war. She’s supposed to be Secretary of State for business and trade but has said nothing on that brief during the campaign.
She’s also Minister for Women and Equalities - and has been for 2 years.
And guess which brief she finds more interesting. In parts.
I am happy to debate the trans issue but surely politically the Tories going on about this, this week, shows they’ve completely given up. Aren’t there bigger issues?
Are there any bigger issues where the Tory party are on the right side of the debate and will get them a few more votes?
The issue is that most bigger issues are things the Tory party have been in control of for the past 14 years so the default response to say we will build 100 new GP surgeries is what stopped you doing so 2 weeks ago?
You highlight the reason why the conservatives are going to lose big time, and it will be the same when they publish their manifesto
However, as far as I am concerned I have dismissed the notion that the conservatives will be relevant for quite sometime, so now Labour have to be pit under the microscope, and despite their insistence everything is costed of course its not and by many many billions
There is a suggestion that Reeves will attack private pensions as this is one area she has not raised as exempt and of course IHT is the other
No matter, tax rises and spending cuts are as certain as PM Starmer by the 5th July
Lots of tax rises will be coming in the Special Budget in September
Yes Rachel may restrict tax relief on pension contributions to 20% which will save Treasury lots of bns. Also maybe restrict annual pensions contribution allowance to £30,000 and bring back the lifetime limit
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
I was watching a youtube Warhammer video the other day which, if you can believe it, started talking about identity politics in an interesting way, in the context of geek fandom.
Essentially, I think we're Donald Ducked. Social media, even back to the Usenet days, is a huge engine for creating identity-based groups. The pandemic gave a good kicking to in-person socialisation that would act to balance it.
Identity-based social grouping creates a sense of being an embattled and victimised minority, it damages broader social empathy, and creates an atomised society of mutually antagonistic identity groups.
Was this the Arbitor Ian one? If so I thought that was a genuinely excellent distillation of the broader culture war/identitarianism in the specific context of a single interest area.
Which is why sentencing is on July 11th - 6 weeks from the date of conviction...
Some thoughts on the Trump trial, especially as I know nothing about the process so would like feedback from anyone who does:
Appeal - He says he is appealing, but doesn't he have to identify grounds for appeal. I presume you can't appeal willy nilly and I assume they were quite careful in avoiding that. I presume he can also appeal the sentence.
Sentence - I understand that a fine is normal for a first offence, but he has shown he doesn't care about that. He has also should complete contempt for the court and the proceedings and shows no remorse. I assume that exacerbates the penalty. Community service would be degrading for him and not as severe as prison so is that likely. I would enjoy seeing him pick up litter.
Is my understanding of this stuff correct?
I think his grounds for appeal are going to be along the lines of “this was a politically-motivated kangaroo court, with a case brought by a bunch of corrupt Democrat officials, trying to keep the great Donald Trump off the ballot in November”.
Whether he can get anyone who matters to actually agree with him, is a different question.
But doesn't he (or rather his lawyers) have to come up with something factual though? Like a piece of critical evidence missed, prosecutors withholding something, the judge misdirecting. You know real stuff other than imaginary stuff.
Historically their first MRP has been the most accurate.
MiC are also MRPing today so we will have a lovely comparison to enjoy Edit - and FocaldataHQ (tomorrow) are joining the throng alongside the first phone poll from Ipsos (thursday) Data, feed us data
I am happy to debate the trans issue but surely politically the Tories going on about this, this week, shows they’ve completely given up. Aren’t there bigger issues?
Are there any bigger issues where the Tory party are on the right side of the debate and will get them a few more votes?
The issue is that most bigger issues are things the Tory party have been in control of for the past 14 years so the default response to say we will build 100 new GP surgeries is what stopped you doing so 2 weeks ago?
You highlight the reason why the conservatives are going to lose big time, and it will be the same when they publish their manifesto
However, as far as I am concerned I have dismissed the notion that the conservatives will be relevant for quite sometime, so now Labour have to be pit under the microscope, and despite their insistence everything is costed of course its not and by many many billions
There is a suggestion that Reeves will attack private pensions as this is one area she has not raised as exempt and of course IHT is the other
No matter, tax rises and spending cuts are as certain as PM Starmer by the 5th July
Lots of tax rises will be coming in the Special Budget in September
Yes Rachel may restrict tax relief on pension contributions to 20% which will save Treasury lots of bns. Also maybe restrict annual pensions contribution allowance to £30,000 and bring back the lifetime limit
Pensions tax relief is one that keeps coming up, because there’s so much money in it, yet the Chancellor has always backed off as it would crash the savings rate. I wonder if the 62% marginal rates have put it back in focus, as people in that trap and piling cash into pension to avoid it.
Obviously the sensible thing to do is to remove the 62% trap in the first place, as it’s a significant driver of changes in behaviour, but instead they’ll probably try and force more people into it.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
I was watching a youtube Warhammer video the other day which, if you can believe it, started talking about identity politics in an interesting way, in the context of geek fandom.
Essentially, I think we're Donald Ducked. Social media, even back to the Usenet days, is a huge engine for creating identity-based groups. The pandemic gave a good kicking to in-person socialisation that would act to balance it.
Identity-based social grouping creates a sense of being an embattled and victimised minority, it damages broader social empathy, and creates an atomised society of mutually antagonistic identity groups.
Albeit, social majorities acting in the name of unity and homogeneity have done the same, and worse. The twentieth century was riddled with atrocities done by those with that mindset. Treating people well seems like a better guideline than trying to live without any social identity, and a lot more strategically sustainable in case the bad guys really are trying to destroy your group.
On your second point, well, the simple thing is I wouldn’t lift the Section 35 if I was the secretary of state. I didn’t oppose the secretary of state using it in the first place. What we did oppose was the fact that he waited, and he shouldn’t have had to use it. But in the end, he did. And the courts have determined that he was right to do so, and therefore we wouldn’t lift it. The ball is in the court of the Scottish Government to do something, if they wish to do so. I suspect, like all of these issues – and this is something that the Tories are guilty of as well – the SNP won’t do anything about it because it’s better to have the issue boiling in the background than it is to actually try and resolve it.
“In terms of ‘what is a woman’, well, it’s a biological adult female. I always felt sorry for Keir when he got the ‘does a woman have a penis?’ question because he answered it as a lawyer, not as a politician. And actually, he was right. His answer was bang on. You know, people in law who are classified as women could have a penis.
“And that’s probably true technically, but that’s not the answer people were looking for.
This sounds clear in principle, but the practicalities are rapidly unravelling this morning. The Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch can’t say what paper work (eg birth certificate) would define biological sex in such cases.
That is because they are making stuff up as they go along, as with national service, because Rishi bounced them into an election for which his own party is clearly unready. Although the revisionist history will claim all this was a cunning plan to get the media discussing Conservative talking points.
That’s bad news. Mexico basically needs a dictator, someone cruel enough to defeat the cartels. Only brutal brutal force will do it. As nayyib bukele is showing in El Salvador
Without that Mexico will become a failed state, quite possibly, and America will be forced into military action
I am happy to debate the trans issue but surely politically the Tories going on about this, this week, shows they’ve completely given up. Aren’t there bigger issues?
Are there any bigger issues where the Tory party are on the right side of the debate and will get them a few more votes?
The issue is that most bigger issues are things the Tory party have been in control of for the past 14 years so the default response to say we will build 100 new GP surgeries is what stopped you doing so 2 weeks ago?
You highlight the reason why the conservatives are going to lose big time, and it will be the same when they publish their manifesto
However, as far as I am concerned I have dismissed the notion that the conservatives will be relevant for quite sometime, so now Labour have to be pit under the microscope, and despite their insistence everything is costed of course its not and by many many billions
There is a suggestion that Reeves will attack private pensions as this is one area she has not raised as exempt and of course IHT is the other
No matter, tax rises and spending cuts are as certain as PM Starmer by the 5th July
Lots of tax rises will be coming in the Special Budget in September
Yes Rachel may restrict tax relief on pension contributions to 20% which will save Treasury lots of bns. Also maybe restrict annual pensions contribution allowance to £30,000 and bring back the lifetime limit
Pensions tax relief is one that keeps coming up, because there’s so much money in it, yet the Chancellor has always backed off as it would crash the savings rate. I wonder if the 62% marginal rates have put it back in focus, as people in that trap and piling cash into pension to avoid it.
Obviously the sensible thing to do is to remove the 62% trap in the first place, as it’s a significant driver of changes in behaviour, but instead they’ll probably try and force more people into it.
For the first time in at least a couple of decades we actually have a savings rate higher than the ideal. We traditionally spent more and saved less than our peers, now we’re up there with them.
So given that, the scope for toning down some of our savings tax incentives is there in a way it wasn’t before.
This sounds clear in principle, but the practicalities are rapidly unravelling this morning. The Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch can’t say what paper work (eg birth certificate) would define biological sex in such cases.
That is because they are making stuff up as they go along, as with national service, because Rishi bounced them into an election for which his own party is clearly unready. Although the revisionist history will claim all this was a cunning plan to get the media discussing Conservative talking points.
Genuine question (to the board): what is 'biological sex' are we talking sex organs or chromosomes or hormone levels? All three seem to fall within 'biological' to me, but have different levels of mutability.
Chromosomes immutable, but would lead to some interesting corner cases, e.g. people registered a sex at birth that does not match chromosomes. The other two are changeable, to varying extents.
This sounds clear in principle, but the practicalities are rapidly unravelling this morning. The Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch can’t say what paper work (eg birth certificate) would define biological sex in such cases.
That is because they are making stuff up as they go along, as with national service, because Rishi bounced them into an election for which his own party is clearly unready. Although the revisionist history will claim all this was a cunning plan to get the media discussing Conservative talking points.
The bigger failure of the R4 interview was not the (ill informed) ramble through paperwork, but the bigger question of “why haven’t you done this already?”
Line of questioning from Mishal Hussein on Eq Act suggests misunderstanding of the law. Clarifying sex means sex in the Eq Act does not prevent providers from providing some mixed-sex rape crisis services. It *allows* providers to provide single sex services without ambiguity.
So Monday is war day in the election. Military war for Labour, culture war for the Conservatives
Kemi Badenoch seems to have been officially anointed minister for culture war. She’s supposed to be Secretary of State for business and trade but has said nothing on that brief during the campaign.
She’s also Minister for Women and Equalities - and has been for 2 years.
And guess which brief she finds more interesting. In parts.
If we're talking parts, I guess it's the Equities part of Equalities, given her banking history?
Which is why sentencing is on July 11th - 6 weeks from the date of conviction...
Some thoughts on the Trump trial, especially as I know nothing about the process so would like feedback from anyone who does:
Appeal - He says he is appealing, but doesn't he have to identify grounds for appeal. I presume you can't appeal willy nilly and I assume they were quite careful in avoiding that. I presume he can also appeal the sentence.
Sentence - I understand that a fine is normal for a first offence, but he has shown he doesn't care about that. He has also should complete contempt for the court and the proceedings and shows no remorse. I assume that exacerbates the penalty. Community service would be degrading for him and not as severe as prison so is that likely. I would enjoy seeing him pick up litter.
Is my understanding of this stuff correct?
I think his grounds for appeal are going to be along the lines of “this was a politically-motivated kangaroo court, with a case brought by a bunch of corrupt Democrat officials, trying to keep the great Donald Trump off the ballot in November”.
Whether he can get anyone who matters to actually agree with him, is a different question.
But doesn't he (or rather his lawyers) have to come up with something factual though? Like a piece of critical evidence missed, prosecutors withholding something, the judge misdirecting. You know real stuff other than imaginary stuff.
He’ll present evidence from the reaction to the verdict, with even notable commentators such as Fareed Zakkaria on CNN saying that Trump is right that it was politically motivated, and the charges wouldn’t have been brought against anyone who wasn’t Donald Trump.
I think that a lot of the Establishment now thinks the trial was a mistake, as it’s allowed Trump to raise his profile even higher and raise an estimated $200m this week. They’ve made a martyr of him, and the media are making the same mistake they made in 2016, of giving him hundreds of millions of dollars more in free publicity.
Now, how well this goes down with the centrist floating voters, as opposed to the activists on either side, is a different question. It will be interesting to see if there’s any significant swing state polling move in either direction in the next few weeks.
Right! I'm going to spend the entire day wandering around the scene of history's most infamous pogrom while reading THE book about that same pogrom, I intend to conclude my day of touring at the same time as I finish the book
Has any other PB-er done this?
Spent the entire day wandering around the scene of history's most infamous pogrom while reading THE book about that same pogrom, then concluding their day of pogrom touring at the same time as they finish the pogrom book?
So as a LD I am going to identify a policy I disagree with from the LDs. Would be interesting to see what stuff supporters from other parties disagree with from the party they support.
The LDs want to get rid of the tax free allowance on CGT. I disagree with this for 2 reasons:
a) The gain has been made over many years rather than one as in income tax and therefore there should be some allowance
b) It is totally impractical. I have shares acquired decades ago that have gone through rights issues, capital consolidations, etc, etc. My wife has shares through her work that she acquired through her payroll monthly, one or two at a time over 10 years. Calculating the gains on these is just about impossible. Selling knowing you are below the gain limit overcomes that. If I had to sell over the gain limit it would be an enormous task. As with all tax it makes sense to have small exemptions as the cost outweighs the benefit on small stuff.
This sounds clear in principle, but the practicalities are rapidly unravelling this morning. The Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch can’t say what paper work (eg birth certificate) would define biological sex in such cases.
That is because they are making stuff up as they go along, as with national service, because Rishi bounced them into an election for which his own party is clearly unready. Although the revisionist history will claim all this was a cunning plan to get the media discussing Conservative talking points.
Genuine question (to the board): what is 'biological sex' are we talking sex organs or chromosomes or hormone levels? All three seem to fall within 'biological' to me, but have different levels of mutability.
Chromosomes immutable, but would lead to some interesting corner cases, e.g. people registered a sex at birth that does not match chromosomes. The other two are changeable, to varying extents.
Strange how the “angels on pinheads” approach is not extended to other protected characteristics….
Let’s not pretend there’s anything is complicated or practically challenging about clarifying that the protected characteristic of sex is biological sex in the Equality Act. There is a clear scientific definition of biological sex.…
Imagine if some people were arguing that it’s too complicated to define race or disability legally so we’re not going to establish protections in law for those groups. Well, that’s exactly what some people are arguing in relation to women. Have a think about what that says.
I am happy to debate the trans issue but surely politically the Tories going on about this, this week, shows they’ve completely given up. Aren’t there bigger issues?
Are there any bigger issues where the Tory party are on the right side of the debate and will get them a few more votes?
The issue is that most bigger issues are things the Tory party have been in control of for the past 14 years so the default response to say we will build 100 new GP surgeries is what stopped you doing so 2 weeks ago?
You highlight the reason why the conservatives are going to lose big time, and it will be the same when they publish their manifesto
However, as far as I am concerned I have dismissed the notion that the conservatives will be relevant for quite sometime, so now Labour have to be pit under the microscope, and despite their insistence everything is costed of course its not and by many many billions
There is a suggestion that Reeves will attack private pensions as this is one area she has not raised as exempt and of course IHT is the other
No matter, tax rises and spending cuts are as certain as PM Starmer by the 5th July
Lots of tax rises will be coming in the Special Budget in September
Yes Rachel may restrict tax relief on pension contributions to 20% which will save Treasury lots of bns. Also maybe restrict annual pensions contribution allowance to £30,000 and bring back the lifetime limit
Lets hope so. I completely agree with the state subsidising peoples retirement but only up to a comfortable level around normal retirement age. Why on earth are we subsidising the supposedly most productive, often trained at our expense like doctors, to retire at 50 still on top 20% of the population level earnings post retirement.
I am happy to debate the trans issue but surely politically the Tories going on about this, this week, shows they’ve completely given up. Aren’t there bigger issues?
Are there any bigger issues where the Tory party are on the right side of the debate and will get them a few more votes?
The issue is that most bigger issues are things the Tory party have been in control of for the past 14 years so the default response to say we will build 100 new GP surgeries is what stopped you doing so 2 weeks ago?
You highlight the reason why the conservatives are going to lose big time, and it will be the same when they publish their manifesto
However, as far as I am concerned I have dismissed the notion that the conservatives will be relevant for quite sometime, so now Labour have to be pit under the microscope, and despite their insistence everything is costed of course its not and by many many billions
There is a suggestion that Reeves will attack private pensions as this is one area she has not raised as exempt and of course IHT is the other
No matter, tax rises and spending cuts are as certain as PM Starmer by the 5th July
Lots of tax rises will be coming in the Special Budget in September
Yes Rachel may restrict tax relief on pension contributions to 20% which will save Treasury lots of bns. Also maybe restrict annual pensions contribution allowance to £30,000 and bring back the lifetime limit
Pensions tax relief is one that keeps coming up, because there’s so much money in it, yet the Chancellor has always backed off as it would crash the savings rate. I wonder if the 62% marginal rates have put it back in focus, as people in that trap and piling cash into pension to avoid it.
Obviously the sensible thing to do is to remove the 62% trap in the first place, as it’s a significant driver of changes in behaviour, but instead they’ll probably try and force more people into it.
No reason to believe that ending higher rate tax relief would stop high earners saving into pension schemes, since they'd still get standard rate tax relief and reduce their higher rate income tax bill by salary sacrifice.
Listened to Badenoch this morning. If I've understood correctly, her fabulous idea is simply to insert the word "biological" before the word "sex" in the 2010 Equality Act. Brilliant. It's taken 14 years of Tory government to conclude that a piece of legislation merits an extra word. No wonder those new hospitals still haven't been built.
So what does Judge Merchan do with Donald Trump? Trump gave a speech at the weekend saying the American people would not stand for it if he was locked up or subject to house arrest. Once again, that is a threat to the judicial system, not just to the judge.
As was seen repeatedly during the trial monetary penalties are of no effect. In fact Trump boasted in the same speech that his campaign had received $39m in the 24 hours following the conviction. Is he really to be allowed to make a profit on his conviction?
People have repeatedly said that others who are first time felons for this offence are not sent to jail. I think this is seriously misleading. Most, nearly all, of those had failed to declare some of their income and pay proper taxes. Trump is alleged to have conspired to win the Presidency of the United States and, in fact, did so. If that is the verdict of the jury then that verdict requires to be respected by the court.
Merchan may dodge this on causation, that there is no proof what he did actually changed the result of the election but it is absurd to pretend that Trump is the equivalent of a small time tax dodger (and, of course, he is a tax dodger as well as we saw in the civil case where he had deceived both the banks and the State as to values). Personally, I think he would be ducking his responsibilities to do anything other than sentence him to jail, especially after both the speech at the weekend and indeed immediately after the conviction. Trump is still setting himself above the criminal justice system. That is unacceptable and the challenge cannot be ducked.
A lot of what Trump has said is protected free speech. Trump’s post-trial behaviour is awful, but it’s not illegal, is it?
In all the U.K. sentencing guidelines I’ve read, contrition and repentance are considered factors. Is it similar in New York?
I'd guess so, and so a lack of contrition or repentance will be bad for him. I presume he already bottomed out on those already, however!
EDIT: That is, there will be a maximum amount of effect a lack of contrition can have on the sentencing. Trump has surely hit that. I don't think he can be penalised more just because he goes on being not contrite.
So as a LD I am going to identify a policy I disagree with from the LDs. Would be interesting to see what stuff supporters from other parties disagree with from the party they support.
The LDs want to get rid of the tax free allowance on CGT. I disagree with this for 2 reasons:
a) The gain has been made over many years rather than one as in income tax and therefore there should be some allowance
b) It is totally impractical. I have shares acquired decades ago that have gone through rights issues, capital consolidations, etc, etc. My wife has shares through her work that she acquired through her payroll monthly, one or two at a time over 10 years. Calculating the gains on these is just about impossible. Selling knowing you are below the gain limit overcomes that. If I had to sell over the gain limit it would be an enormous task. As with all tax it makes sense to have small exemptions as the cost outweighs the benefit on small stuff.
I'm CON. I disagree with the talk of cutting IHT. It's unearned wealth in the hands of the recipient and needs to be taxed appropriately. I know @HYUFD will disagree with me!
Also the policy of increasing personal allowance for pensioners only is ridiculous. Personal allowance needs to be increased for everyone.
Listened to Badenoch this morning. If I've understood correctly, her fabulous idea is simply to insert the word "biological" before the word "sex" in the 2010 Equality Act. Brilliant. It's taken 14 years of Tory government to conclude that a piece of legislation merits an extra word. No wonder those new hospitals still haven't been built.
They've been so busy crashing the economy, they haven't had time to insert extra words.
Which is why sentencing is on July 11th - 6 weeks from the date of conviction...
Some thoughts on the Trump trial, especially as I know nothing about the process so would like feedback from anyone who does:
Appeal - He says he is appealing, but doesn't he have to identify grounds for appeal. I presume you can't appeal willy nilly and I assume they were quite careful in avoiding that. I presume he can also appeal the sentence.
Sentence - I understand that a fine is normal for a first offence, but he has shown he doesn't care about that. He has also should complete contempt for the court and the proceedings and shows no remorse. I assume that exacerbates the penalty. Community service would be degrading for him and not as severe as prison so is that likely. I would enjoy seeing him pick up litter.
Is my understanding of this stuff correct?
I think his grounds for appeal are going to be along the lines of “this was a politically-motivated kangaroo court, with a case brought by a bunch of corrupt Democrat officials, trying to keep the great Donald Trump off the ballot in November”.
Whether he can get anyone who matters to actually agree with him, is a different question.
But doesn't he (or rather his lawyers) have to come up with something factual though? Like a piece of critical evidence missed, prosecutors withholding something, the judge misdirecting. You know real stuff other than imaginary stuff.
He’ll present evidence from the reaction to the verdict, with even notable commentators such as Fareed Zakkaria on CNN saying that Trump is right that it was politically motivated, and the charges wouldn’t have been brought against anyone who wasn’t Donald Trump.
I think that a lot of the Establishment now thinks the trial was a mistake, as it’s allowed Trump to raise his profile even higher and raise an estimated $200m this week. They’ve made a martyr of him, and the media are making the same mistake they made in 2016, of giving him hundreds of millions of dollars more in free publicity.
Now, how well this goes down with the centrist floating voters, as opposed to the activists on either side, is a different question. It will be interesting to see if there’s any significant swing state polling move in either direction in the next few weeks.
Betting-wise, after the verdict Trump went out to 6/4 against before a wall of money pushed him back into a shade of odds-on.
This sounds clear in principle, but the practicalities are rapidly unravelling this morning. The Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch can’t say what paper work (eg birth certificate) would define biological sex in such cases.
That is because they are making stuff up as they go along, as with national service, because Rishi bounced them into an election for which his own party is clearly unready. Although the revisionist history will claim all this was a cunning plan to get the media discussing Conservative talking points.
Genuine question (to the board): what is 'biological sex' are we talking sex organs or chromosomes or hormone levels? All three seem to fall within 'biological' to me, but have different levels of mutability.
Chromosomes immutable, but would lead to some interesting corner cases, e.g. people registered a sex at birth that does not match chromosomes. The other two are changeable, to varying extents.
Strange how the “angels on pinheads” approach is not extended to other protected characteristics….
Let’s not pretend there’s anything is complicated or practically challenging about clarifying that the protected characteristic of sex is biological sex in the Equality Act. There is a clear scientific definition of biological sex.…
Imagine if some people were arguing that it’s too complicated to define race or disability legally so we’re not going to establish protections in law for those groups. Well, that’s exactly what some people are arguing in relation to women. Have a think about what that says.
Hmm. No answer though - if it's that simple why not link to the answer? And we don't ban people from spaces on the basis of ethnic group, do we? We can handle vague definitions of other characteristics because we look at discrimination based on a belief of that characteristic being present, do we not? Or indeed by the victim identifying in that way.
So, of course, in most cases there's no confusion. And there can be no confusion if the government defines what it means (birth certificate is one means and seems by far the most sensible) but I do think they need to define it.
ETA: Google brings up all my three suggested options for 'biological sex'. The Council of Europe page on the same lists all three, too. So the definition is far from clear, I would suggest, given that those three options can be inconsistent with each other.
So as a LD I am going to identify a policy I disagree with from the LDs. Would be interesting to see what stuff supporters from other parties disagree with from the party they support.
The LDs want to get rid of the tax free allowance on CGT. I disagree with this for 2 reasons:
a) The gain has been made over many years rather than one as in income tax and therefore there should be some allowance
b) It is totally impractical. I have shares acquired decades ago that have gone through rights issues, capital consolidations, etc, etc. My wife has shares through her work that she acquired through her payroll monthly, one or two at a time over 10 years. Calculating the gains on these is just about impossible. Selling knowing you are below the gain limit overcomes that. If I had to sell over the gain limit it would be an enormous task. As with all tax it makes sense to have small exemptions as the cost outweighs the benefit on small stuff.
You realise the allowance has recently been slashed to £3k?
It can certainly be a pain to calculate, but as the allowance is now so low I don't see that you can know you're below it without doing the calculation.
I am happy to debate the trans issue but surely politically the Tories going on about this, this week, shows they’ve completely given up. Aren’t there bigger issues?
Are there any bigger issues where the Tory party are on the right side of the debate and will get them a few more votes?
The issue is that most bigger issues are things the Tory party have been in control of for the past 14 years so the default response to say we will build 100 new GP surgeries is what stopped you doing so 2 weeks ago?
You highlight the reason why the conservatives are going to lose big time, and it will be the same when they publish their manifesto
However, as far as I am concerned I have dismissed the notion that the conservatives will be relevant for quite sometime, so now Labour have to be pit under the microscope, and despite their insistence everything is costed of course its not and by many many billions
There is a suggestion that Reeves will attack private pensions as this is one area she has not raised as exempt and of course IHT is the other
No matter, tax rises and spending cuts are as certain as PM Starmer by the 5th July
Lots of tax rises will be coming in the Special Budget in September
Yes Rachel may restrict tax relief on pension contributions to 20% which will save Treasury lots of bns. Also maybe restrict annual pensions contribution allowance to £30,000 and bring back the lifetime limit
Pensions tax relief is one that keeps coming up, because there’s so much money in it, yet the Chancellor has always backed off as it would crash the savings rate. I wonder if the 62% marginal rates have put it back in focus, as people in that trap and piling cash into pension to avoid it.
Obviously the sensible thing to do is to remove the 62% trap in the first place, as it’s a significant driver of changes in behaviour, but instead they’ll probably try and force more people into it.
The obvious thing to do with the 62% band is change the loss of PA from say £1 in £2 to £1 in £5 so it smooths it better so instead of the 20% hike to 62% it would be a 8% hike to 50%. You could introduce it at a lower level, say £80,000 instead of £100,000 so there is no tax loss. You then introduce the next tax band to be equal at the point where the loss of PA is complete so again you don't get the yo yo in the marginal rate by it dropping again. The Tories went someway in doing this with the lowering of the 45% band to just over £125,000, but it was still a hopeless yo yo effect on the marginal rate eg 42% then 62% then 47%.
You want the rate to climb sensibly and gradually as you earn more, not go up and down like a yo yo and violently.
This sounds clear in principle, but the practicalities are rapidly unravelling this morning. The Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch can’t say what paper work (eg birth certificate) would define biological sex in such cases.
That is because they are making stuff up as they go along, as with national service, because Rishi bounced them into an election for which his own party is clearly unready. Although the revisionist history will claim all this was a cunning plan to get the media discussing Conservative talking points.
Genuine question (to the board): what is 'biological sex' are we talking sex organs or chromosomes or hormone levels? All three seem to fall within 'biological' to me, but have different levels of mutability.
Chromosomes immutable, but would lead to some interesting corner cases, e.g. people registered a sex at birth that does not match chromosomes. The other two are changeable, to varying extents.
Strange how the “angels on pinheads” approach is not extended to other protected characteristics….
Let’s not pretend there’s anything is complicated or practically challenging about clarifying that the protected characteristic of sex is biological sex in the Equality Act. There is a clear scientific definition of biological sex.…
Imagine if some people were arguing that it’s too complicated to define race or disability legally so we’re not going to establish protections in law for those groups. Well, that’s exactly what some people are arguing in relation to women. Have a think about what that says.
Hmm. No answer though - if it's that simple why not link to the answer? And we don't ban people from spaces on the basis of ethnic group, do we? We can handle vague definitions of other characteristics because we look at discrimination based on a belief of that characteristic being present, do we not? Or indeed by the victim identifying in that way.
So, of course, in most cases there's no confusion. And there can be no confusion if the government defines what it means (birth certificate is one means and seems by far the most sensible) but I do think they need to define it.
In most cases, who cares? There is no gatekeeper. No-one will demand to see your papers when you approach a public convenience. And that's the beauty of it from the culture warrior's point of view, endless debate around angels dancing on the head of a pin.
Anyone wish to dissuade me from laying Trump some more at 1.99 bf? I can't believe price is this low.
Backing at 2.54 Biden to win is an alternative and possibly better bet if you agree that his health concerns are somewhat exaggerated.
I prefer backing Biden. On Trump he is ahead in the polls and incumbants are doing badly globally.
Trump is polling well in the swing states which is a worry. But on the other hand I think his legal troubles and the abortion issue are going to cost him votes, particularly the latter.
I am happy to debate the trans issue but surely politically the Tories going on about this, this week, shows they’ve completely given up. Aren’t there bigger issues?
Are there any bigger issues where the Tory party are on the right side of the debate and will get them a few more votes?
The issue is that most bigger issues are things the Tory party have been in control of for the past 14 years so the default response to say we will build 100 new GP surgeries is what stopped you doing so 2 weeks ago?
You highlight the reason why the conservatives are going to lose big time, and it will be the same when they publish their manifesto
However, as far as I am concerned I have dismissed the notion that the conservatives will be relevant for quite sometime, so now Labour have to be pit under the microscope, and despite their insistence everything is costed of course its not and by many many billions
There is a suggestion that Reeves will attack private pensions as this is one area she has not raised as exempt and of course IHT is the other
No matter, tax rises and spending cuts are as certain as PM Starmer by the 5th July
Lots of tax rises will be coming in the Special Budget in September
Yes Rachel may restrict tax relief on pension contributions to 20% which will save Treasury lots of bns. Also maybe restrict annual pensions contribution allowance to £30,000 and bring back the lifetime limit
Pensions tax relief is one that keeps coming up, because there’s so much money in it, yet the Chancellor has always backed off as it would crash the savings rate. I wonder if the 62% marginal rates have put it back in focus, as people in that trap and piling cash into pension to avoid it.
Obviously the sensible thing to do is to remove the 62% trap in the first place, as it’s a significant driver of changes in behaviour, but instead they’ll probably try and force more people into it.
The obvious thing to do with the 62% band is change the loss of PA from say £1 in £2 to £1 in £5 so it smooths it better so instead of the 20% hike to 62% it would be a 8% hike to 50%. You could introduce it at a lower level, say £80,000 instead of £100,000 so there is no tax loss. You then introduce the next tax band to be equal at the point where the loss of PA is complete so again you don't get the yo yo in the marginal rate by it dropping again. The Tories went someway in doing this with the lowering of the 45% band to just over £125,000, but it was still a hopeless yo yo effect on the marginal rate eg 42% then 62% then 47%.
You want the rate to climb sensibly and gradually as you earn more, not go up and down like a yo yo and violently.
Or simply get rid of the personal allowance restriction and have a 50% rate from £100,000pa?
Listened to Badenoch this morning. If I've understood correctly, her fabulous idea is simply to insert the word "biological" before the word "sex" in the 2010 Equality Act. Brilliant. It's taken 14 years of Tory government to conclude that a piece of legislation merits an extra word. No wonder those new hospitals still haven't been built.
I disagree, it's become vital to make clear in legislation the difference between sex and gender. It's unbelievable that this we where we are, I agree.
That’s bad news. Mexico basically needs a dictator, someone cruel enough to defeat the cartels. Only brutal brutal force will do it. As nayyib bukele is showing in El Salvador
Without that Mexico will become a failed state, quite possibly, and America will be forced into military action
Which is why sentencing is on July 11th - 6 weeks from the date of conviction...
Some thoughts on the Trump trial, especially as I know nothing about the process so would like feedback from anyone who does:
Appeal - He says he is appealing, but doesn't he have to identify grounds for appeal. I presume you can't appeal willy nilly and I assume they were quite careful in avoiding that. I presume he can also appeal the sentence.
Sentence - I understand that a fine is normal for a first offence, but he has shown he doesn't care about that. He has also should complete contempt for the court and the proceedings and shows no remorse. I assume that exacerbates the penalty. Community service would be degrading for him and not as severe as prison so is that likely. I would enjoy seeing him pick up litter.
Is my understanding of this stuff correct?
I think his grounds for appeal are going to be along the lines of “this was a politically-motivated kangaroo court, with a case brought by a bunch of corrupt Democrat officials, trying to keep the great Donald Trump off the ballot in November”.
Whether he can get anyone who matters to actually agree with him, is a different question.
But doesn't he (or rather his lawyers) have to come up with something factual though? Like a piece of critical evidence missed, prosecutors withholding something, the judge misdirecting. You know real stuff other than imaginary stuff.
He’ll present evidence from the reaction to the verdict, with even notable commentators such as Fareed Zakkaria on CNN saying that Trump is right that it was politically motivated, and the charges wouldn’t have been brought against anyone who wasn’t Donald Trump.
I think that a lot of the Establishment now thinks the trial was a mistake, as it’s allowed Trump to raise his profile even higher and raise an estimated $200m this week. They’ve made a martyr of him, and the media are making the same mistake they made in 2016, of giving him hundreds of millions of dollars more in free publicity.
Now, how well this goes down with the centrist floating voters, as opposed to the activists on either side, is a different question. It will be interesting to see if there’s any significant swing state polling move in either direction in the next few weeks.
Betting-wise, after the verdict Trump went out to 6/4 against before a wall of money pushed him back into a shade of odds-on.
Logic says that a politician being convicted by a court, or sent to prison, would count against him. But this is Donald Trump, and he can turn pretty much anything to his advantage, at least with his base.
The next few weeks of polling (and betting odds) are going to be fascinating to watch. I suspect the value is in laying whichever of Trump and Biden is shorter at any given time, rather than backing either. I’m still not convinced that Trump and Biden are both there come November.
This sounds clear in principle, but the practicalities are rapidly unravelling this morning. The Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch can’t say what paper work (eg birth certificate) would define biological sex in such cases.
That is because they are making stuff up as they go along, as with national service, because Rishi bounced them into an election for which his own party is clearly unready. Although the revisionist history will claim all this was a cunning plan to get the media discussing Conservative talking points.
Genuine question (to the board): what is 'biological sex' are we talking sex organs or chromosomes or hormone levels? All three seem to fall within 'biological' to me, but have different levels of mutability.
Chromosomes immutable, but would lead to some interesting corner cases, e.g. people registered a sex at birth that does not match chromosomes. The other two are changeable, to varying extents.
Strange how the “angels on pinheads” approach is not extended to other protected characteristics….
Let’s not pretend there’s anything is complicated or practically challenging about clarifying that the protected characteristic of sex is biological sex in the Equality Act. There is a clear scientific definition of biological sex.…
Imagine if some people were arguing that it’s too complicated to define race or disability legally so we’re not going to establish protections in law for those groups. Well, that’s exactly what some people are arguing in relation to women. Have a think about what that says.
Hmm. No answer though - if it's that simple why not link to the answer? And we don't ban people from spaces on the basis of ethnic group, do we? We can handle vague definitions of other characteristics because we look at discrimination based on a belief of that characteristic being present, do we not? Or indeed by the victim identifying in that way.
So, of course, in most cases there's no confusion. And there can be no confusion if the government defines what it means (birth certificate is one means and seems by far the most sensible) but I do think they need to define it.
In most cases, who cares? There is no gatekeeper. No-one will demand to see your papers when you approach a public convenience. And that's the beauty of it from the culture warrior's point of view, endless debate around angels dancing on the head of a pin.
Well, indeed.
Although it's plausible that e.g. rape/domestic violence support groups might ask for documentation. Although I doubt many do.
But if the next Conservative government () are proposing to clarify this then it would be good to actually have a 'clarification' that clarifies.
Listened to Badenoch this morning. If I've understood correctly, her fabulous idea is simply to insert the word "biological" before the word "sex" in the 2010 Equality Act. Brilliant. It's taken 14 years of Tory government to conclude that a piece of legislation merits an extra word. No wonder those new hospitals still haven't been built.
They've been so busy crashing the economy, they haven't had time to insert extra words.
Why do the pollsters bother? There can’t be demand for this many polls per day, can there?
I read at one time they were loss leaders. The pollsters don't make their money from political polls, but they it's the way they get their name out, and gives them the respectability needed for other commercial clients.
Now that most are online polls, the cost involved is a fraction of what it used to be, so it's easy to churn them out, and of course this is the one time every few years that people actually pay attention.
Sure, but how much attention are you going to attract to your brand when there are 5 polls in one day?
So as a LD I am going to identify a policy I disagree with from the LDs. Would be interesting to see what stuff supporters from other parties disagree with from the party they support.
The LDs want to get rid of the tax free allowance on CGT. I disagree with this for 2 reasons:
a) The gain has been made over many years rather than one as in income tax and therefore there should be some allowance
b) It is totally impractical. I have shares acquired decades ago that have gone through rights issues, capital consolidations, etc, etc. My wife has shares through her work that she acquired through her payroll monthly, one or two at a time over 10 years. Calculating the gains on these is just about impossible. Selling knowing you are below the gain limit overcomes that. If I had to sell over the gain limit it would be an enormous task. As with all tax it makes sense to have small exemptions as the cost outweighs the benefit on small stuff.
You realise the allowance has recently been slashed to £3k?
It can certainly be a pain to calculate, but as the allowance is now so low I don't see that you can know you're below it without doing the calculation.
I absolutely do (I know my taxes). Obviously for personal reasons I would like it to be higher, but £3000 is perfectly workable unless you are really selling a lot. You don't have to declare any sales over £12,000 providing the gain is under £3000 and no shares I or my wife owns (or lots of people come to that will have blocks of £12,000 of shares with gains over £3000). So unless you want to sell a lot of shares it is easy to sell a block without having to worry about. I don't think any of my individual blocks exceed that and although my wife's do no £12,000 block will exceed £3000 in gains and if in doubt we would sell less.
You don't want to drag thousands of people with a few hundred Santander or BT shares into the tax system for a tax return of a few tens of pounds.
Comments
Here’s another clue: intellectually they are related
I mean, if that is failure, what counts as success in your eyes? Perhaps if he made sixteen trillion trillion dollars and bought all of China for his niece? Politically, maybe he should have aimed higher? Intergalactic warlord of the andromeda cluster? Supreme deity? What?
As with all surveys there is a lot nuance lost in these things. Social media may be where people think they are getting their news, but it will usually be from actual journalistic sources posting (or linking from) there, rather than 50% of adults being beamed broadcasts from TikTok Politburo Central.
Also worth noting that people tend to trust social media significantly less than traditional sources. We can go O Tempora O Mores about it but it is what it is; we’re living through a communications revolution which is as significant as the industrial one - but the levers of the human mind haven’t particularly changed much since the Sophists.
So while I see merit in the risk/curiosity/intelligence overlap-argument - I’m hesitant (as I say) to see this as proof of male superiority overall
But people who just piss about on Facebook and never travel are dumb fucks. That is also true
Politics requires some odd skill sets and it is quite possible to be an excellent Minister and a terrible politician, and vice versa - the competencies for both things are not always complementary.
The irony there is that the highest church in the deanery is by far the most welcoming...
Though I couldn't be bothered to wade through this stuff to work out the details.
https://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/2013/cpl/part-2/title-l/article-400/400.10/
It wasn’t trans people that made my mortgage payments go up by £300 per month*
(*not actually mine, as I sensibly locked our interest for five years, against domestic protestations I might add. But it is the experience of many, including a lot of people to whom the Cons should be appealing).
Very simply, the dross of social media, while deadly and false, actually addresses issues and answers questions.
It's years since Oborne wrote 'The rise of political lying'. Politicians lie in a boring, unimaginative and complex way. Social media lies in attractive and comprehensible ways.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
I would agree with @Eabhal re the definition of conservative supporters, though in my case I am not rich nor a member of the RSPB though was very active in our Community including being a retired chair of the PTA, group Scout Council, and Community Centre Committee plus having been involved with various charities raising tens of thousands for local communities and underprivileged children.
As far as the RNLI are concerned, it should be remembered that as recently as this weekend our two boats were called out at 4.00am to search for a missing 57 year old woman whose body they sadly recovered from the sea, and the crews were visibly upset about the shout.
They are not interested in politics or those who try to make them a political football
https://nhspayscales.co.uk/nhs-pay-scales-2024-25-predicted/
It always one crisis or another with this lot. Usually around the time of pay negotiations.
Hunter Biden is (IMO) pretty likely guilty, but he's entitled to due process. Note that the judge who is ignoring material inconsistencies in the prosecution's documents is the same one who vacated Biden's plea bargain solely on the basis of inconsistent paperwork.
On Eve of Hunter Biden Gun Trial, Judge Maryellen Noreika Covers Up Possible Gun Crime
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/06/02/on-eve-of-hunter-biden-gun-trial-judge-maryellen-noreika-covers-up-suspected-gun-crime/
I am not a Thatcher fan; far from it. But she wanted a better country, and would not retreat to appealing solely to a core base. The Tories are in a terrible place at the moment; I think a shift happened really under Johnson where actual running of the country took second place to optics and voter appeal - where winning is all, and the actual point of politics is forgotten and it simply becomes a kind of terrible sport.
This is now reaching its natural conclusion with a complete abandonment of the young and the working age to drag as many pensioners into the polling booth as possible.
The issue is that most bigger issues are things the Tory party have been in control of for the past 14 years so the default response to say we will build 100 new GP surgeries is what stopped you doing so 2 weeks ago?
And
"Rooves"?
This was exemplified by Johnson. Charismatic, and an empty-headed buffoon. It was an especially atrocious decision by Conservatives given they had the example of Corbyn staring them in the face (and yes, they're not directly the same, Johnson was never a political extremist who would side with Russia over the UK, but the point stands).
Reading Bleak House; discovered the idea of a home "growlery". Seems a real loss; can we bring it back?
https://x.com/patrickc/status/1797405597882802479
(Not a few PBers would probably benefit from having one.)
Therefore, based on what is happening in our house, I can confidently say that "the Asian community" is having a lie-in this morning.
Now that most are online polls, the cost involved is a fraction of what it used to be, so it's easy to churn them out, and of course this is the one time every few years that people actually pay attention.
Has any other PB-er done this?
Spent the entire day wandering around the scene of history's most infamous pogrom while reading THE book about that same pogrom, then concluding their day of pogrom touring at the same time as they finish the pogrom book?
I think this could be a first
https://www.amazon.com/Pogrom-Kishinev-Steven-J-Zipperstein/dp/1631492691
Macclesfield was Remain though and will likely go Labour on the current national swing
Appeal - He says he is appealing, but doesn't he have to identify grounds for appeal. I presume you can't appeal willy nilly and I assume they were quite careful in avoiding that. I presume he can also appeal the sentence.
Sentence - I understand that a fine is normal for a first offence, but he has shown he doesn't care about that. He has also should complete contempt for the court and the proceedings and shows no remorse. I assume that exacerbates the penalty. Community service would be degrading for him and not as severe as prison so is that likely. I would enjoy seeing him pick up litter.
Is my understanding of this stuff correct?
However, as far as I am concerned I have dismissed the notion that the conservatives will be relevant for quite sometime, so now Labour have to be pit under the microscope, and despite their insistence everything is costed of course its not and by many many billions
There is a suggestion that Reeves will attack private pensions as this is one area she has not raised as exempt and of course IHT is the other
No matter, tax rises and spending cuts are as certain as PM Starmer by the 5th July
He’s now taken to turning up at sporting events, where he can get a large crowd cheering with very little effort on his part.
This weekend he was at the UFC: https://x.com/tpostmillennial/status/1797088141637231024?s=12
Last weekend it was the NASCAR: https://x.com/target_reporter/status/1794864383509860623?s=12
Essentially, I think we're Donald Ducked. Social media, even back to the Usenet days, is a huge engine for creating identity-based groups. The pandemic gave a good kicking to in-person socialisation that would act to balance it.
Identity-based social grouping creates a sense of being an embattled and victimised minority, it damages broader social empathy, and creates an atomised society of mutually antagonistic identity groups.
Whether he can get anyone who matters to actually agree with him, is a different question.
(Though I've also got a horrible feeling that proper political interviews as a mass market thing need a world with 3 or 4 TV channels.)
The other one was Woking.
3 polls and 2 mrps out today so some yummy data to salivate over and pretend is the actual result innit
Yes Rachel may restrict tax relief on pension contributions to 20% which will save Treasury lots of bns. Also maybe restrict annual pensions contribution allowance to £30,000 and bring back the lifetime limit
Get your predictions in now!
Historically their first MRP has been the most accurate.
"Mexico elects Sheinbaum as first woman president - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp4475gwny1o
Edit - and FocaldataHQ (tomorrow) are joining the throng alongside the first phone poll from Ipsos (thursday)
Data, feed us data
Obviously the sensible thing to do is to remove the 62% trap in the first place, as it’s a significant driver of changes in behaviour, but instead they’ll probably try and force more people into it.
On your second point, well, the simple thing is I wouldn’t lift the Section 35 if I was the secretary of state. I didn’t oppose the secretary of state using it in the first place. What we did oppose was the fact that he waited, and he shouldn’t have had to use it. But in the end, he did. And the courts have determined that he was right to do so, and therefore we wouldn’t lift it. The ball is in the court of the Scottish Government to do something, if they wish to do so. I suspect, like all of these issues – and this is something that the Tories are guilty of as well – the SNP won’t do anything about it because it’s better to have the issue boiling in the background than it is to actually try and resolve it.
“In terms of ‘what is a woman’, well, it’s a biological adult female. I always felt sorry for Keir when he got the ‘does a woman have a penis?’ question because he answered it as a lawyer, not as a politician. And actually, he was right. His answer was bang on. You know, people in law who are classified as women could have a penis.
“And that’s probably true technically, but that’s not the answer people were looking for.
https://www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,ian-murray-i-helped-get-rid-of-the-tory-mp-who-failed-my-mum
Without that Mexico will become a failed state, quite possibly, and America will be forced into military action
So given that, the scope for toning down some of our savings tax incentives is there in a way it wasn’t before.
Chromosomes immutable, but would lead to some interesting corner cases, e.g. people registered a sex at birth that does not match chromosomes. The other two are changeable, to varying extents.
Line of questioning from Mishal Hussein on Eq Act suggests misunderstanding of the law. Clarifying sex means sex in the Eq Act does not prevent providers from providing some mixed-sex rape crisis services. It *allows* providers to provide single sex services without ambiguity.
https://x.com/soniasodha/status/1797529250683371814
https://x.com/thethe1776/status/1790034762402496729?s=12
I think that a lot of the Establishment now thinks the trial was a mistake, as it’s allowed Trump to raise his profile even higher and raise an estimated $200m this week. They’ve made a martyr of him, and the media are making the same mistake they made in 2016, of giving him hundreds of millions of dollars more in free publicity.
Now, how well this goes down with the centrist floating voters, as opposed to the activists on either side, is a different question. It will be interesting to see if there’s any significant swing state polling move in either direction in the next few weeks.
The LDs want to get rid of the tax free allowance on CGT. I disagree with this for 2 reasons:
a) The gain has been made over many years rather than one as in income tax and therefore there should be some allowance
b) It is totally impractical. I have shares acquired decades ago that have gone through rights issues, capital consolidations, etc, etc. My wife has shares through her work that she acquired through her payroll monthly, one or two at a time over 10 years. Calculating the gains on these is just about impossible. Selling knowing you are below the gain limit overcomes that. If I had to sell over the gain limit it would be an enormous task. As with all tax it makes sense to have small exemptions as the cost outweighs the benefit on small stuff.
Let’s not pretend there’s anything is complicated or practically challenging about clarifying that the protected characteristic of sex is biological sex in the Equality Act. There is a clear scientific definition of biological sex.…
Imagine if some people were arguing that it’s too complicated to define race or disability legally so we’re not going to establish protections in law for those groups. Well, that’s exactly what some people are arguing in relation to women. Have a think about what that says.
https://x.com/soniasodha/status/1797535591866958215
Backing at 2.54 Biden to win is an alternative and possibly better bet if you agree that his health concerns are somewhat exaggerated.
No wonder those new hospitals still haven't been built.
EDIT: That is, there will be a maximum amount of effect a lack of contrition can have on the sentencing. Trump has surely hit that. I don't think he can be penalised more just because he goes on being not contrite.
Also the policy of increasing personal allowance for pensioners only is ridiculous. Personal allowance needs to be increased for everyone.
https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/1797533496795410836?s=12
Kursk Oblast, Russia, Ukrainian forces conducted a highly successful ambush on a Russian column of 14 vehicles moving just over the border.
Ukrainian forces hit a lead KamAZ truck with an FPV munition, before hunting down and destroying the rest of the convoy.
So, of course, in most cases there's no confusion. And there can be no confusion if the government defines what it means (birth certificate is one means and seems by far the most sensible) but I do think they need to define it.
ETA: Google brings up all my three suggested options for 'biological sex'. The Council of Europe page on the same lists all three, too. So the definition is far from clear, I would suggest, given that those three options can be inconsistent with each other.
It can certainly be a pain to calculate, but as the allowance is now so low I don't see that you can know you're below it without doing the calculation.
You want the rate to climb sensibly and gradually as you earn more, not go up and down like a yo yo and violently.
The next few weeks of polling (and betting odds) are going to be fascinating to watch. I suspect the value is in laying whichever of Trump and Biden is shorter at any given time, rather than backing either. I’m still not convinced that Trump and Biden are both there come November.
Although it's plausible that e.g. rape/domestic violence support groups might ask for documentation. Although I doubt many do.
But if the next Conservative government (
You don't want to drag thousands of people with a few hundred Santander or BT shares into the tax system for a tax return of a few tens of pounds.