I didn't watch the debate, but as Tory, and not seeing anything in print about Starmer making a mistake, it has to be a win for Starmer. Major was as dull as ditchwater....
He was certainly focused on not making a mistake and emphasising 14 wasted years. He knows he's got this. But May knew she had it too when she tried to make an entire campaign out of strong and stable. People get both bored and disenchanted with that form of campaigning.
Have you made any calculations on how it will save a lot of money? Because it seems to me that postponing death and disease isn't necessarily going to save any money - it might do the opposite.
Living longer isn't the problem. Living your last years with chronic disease (or cancer) is what really costs the NHS. Not everyone costs the NHS massive amounts in their final years.
I'm making assumptions, I acknowledge, but it already seems quite likely that these drugs reduce the incidence of both those things (there also seems to be an effect on dementia).
It's too soon to make calculations - and the costs of the drugs before they go generic will be a big factor - but organisations like NICE will be getting very interested.
You’re right to be optimistic. So many sudden advances are being made as technology gets to grips with priorly intractable medical problems - from cancer to dementia to obesity to basic ageing
In ten years we could add twenty HEALTHY years to the average life
That would undoubtedly be a great thing in many ways - assuming people realised it couldn't all be added onto their retirement. Would rather delay the predictions of global population starting to decline.
We are on the precipice of multiple transformations, which will render much of our political debate trivial if not ridiculous
All of your political debate is trivial and ridiculous
The proportion of losses caused by drone strikes is just incredible. No army from any country is going to be able to go into the field without both fleets of offensive drones and some form of protection from them. Our current army is no longer really fit for purpose.
Last night Sunak repeated his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence and Starmer refused, again, to match it. In the short term, as we catch up with the evolution of warfare in Ukraine, the question has to be whether 2.5% is enough.
Whilst I tend to think that defence spending should rise, I don’t think the absolute level of spending is the entire ball game. How you spend money is just as important as how much money you spend. A genuine strategic defence and security review, not a mislabelled cost cutting exercise, should be conducted. It is clear the risks and threats to peace and security are growing not shrinking and look likely to be persistent over the medium term horizon and that requires a robust response and a retuning of posture.
I wonder how many of their polling sample even watched it. In fact, do we have a number for how many watched it? I think this polling reflects the current polling where Starmer is streets ahead. I don't agree with their conclusion on the debate but actually this result is more significant. Starmer remains comfortably ahead in the public's perception.
The story about weight loss drugs and cancer is fascinating. For me it's further evidence of the critical importance of high quality diet and how we facilitate and encourage that as a country. All debates about UPF's, access to fruit and veg, good food habits and associated farming policies are one of the biggest issues we face as a country.
The next few decades could be amazing. On point, the economics of the nhs might radically change in our favour. Science not politics is the answer.
Also on the tech front (and directly relevant to Rishi's bogus £2k figure), Wes Streeting should have a look at these new low cost scanners. They can't do everything the existing very expensive ones which use superconducting magnets, but could substitute for them in a large number of cases.
I can report that downtown Odessa is weirdly idyllic on a fresh, warm, cloudless summer morning. I've set up my office on my hotel balcony, so I can get a good view of any missiles though it's probably not ideal in terms of shrapnel. We had an air raid warning early morning, everyone ignored it. I am staring down Alexandrovsky street, three blocks from Potemkin Steps
War produces oddities. Last night I discovered a very high class supermarket next to my hotel which offers jamon iberica de bellota shaved newly from the bone (and a superb variety of cheeses, charcuterie, amazing fresh fruit, fine wines). I can't work out if Odessa still has a concentration of rich people, somehow, or this is luxury demanded by returning soldiers (can't blame them)
And at night Odessa is rhapsodically quiet. Curfew kicks in around 11pm, much of the portable generated electricity is switched off. There are no cars, no engines, nothing, it is quieter than Venice, the street-trees whisper under the stars. And you can hear birdsong half a mile away, as the rosy Odessan dawn arrives, the slant light shining on the pale green Italianate terraces. Peculiar yet blissful
That said, like me, most people will not have seen the debates and most people do not get their news from the Tory press. It could be that the price of an hour of claiming a £2000 Labour tax rise is incoming will be paid for by four weeks of everyone outside the Tory press - including, crucially, the broadcasters - explaining why it's not true. You can get away with that kind of thing when you have the benefit of the doubt but Sunak and the Tories squandered that a long time ago. I can see why Sunak pressed the claim but I'm not convinced it will turn out to be anything like a gamechanger.
Wasn't the lesson of the Brexit campaign that the more you try to explain away a numerical "lie" from the other side, the more you amplify the original claim, and the more you reinforce its fundamental message?
The last thing Labour want to do for the next four weeks is to spend that time earnestly explaining that tax rises will only be £1000, or £200, or whatever other figure that people won't trust, but will just take the message that Labour will put up taxes.
I wonder how many of their polling sample even watched it. In fact, do we have a number for how many watched it? I think this polling reflects the current polling where Starmer is streets ahead. I don't agree with their conclusion on the debate but actually this result is more significant. Starmer remains comfortably ahead in the public's perception.
The polling must be of people who watched the debate. If it wasn't, Starmer would surely have won the headline question a lot more convincingly.
Morning all, at least we are one day closer to it all being over; election wise and at a cosmic level! I’m beginning to wonder if the mess politics has got itself into is a toxic relationship between politicians and the electorate. The politicians pretending that incredibly complex issues have simplistic solutions and the voters responding by demanding even more areas of policy are subjected to oversimplification. The end result is that a sizeable chunk of the electorate give up on the whole process and another chunk get seduced by the pied piper of the most egregiously simplistic and counterproductive policies.
The debates and social media are symptomatic of this trend as politicians are now being asked to boil policy down to fit in a 45 second debate response or a 30 second TikTok video. It’s not healthy, it’s not even sane. The consequence is that politicians are expected to be able to walk in and solve national problems simply by showing up and when that doesn’t happen because it’s unrealistic voters turn with savage ferocity. Hence the stunning reverse the Tories are subject to at this election, their promises last time were entirely unrealistic and that having transpired voters move on to the next snake oil salesman. The warning for Labour is clear that when they can’t deliver the new Jerusalem simply by getting elected the voters will turn on them savagely.
In this sense Farage isn’t an antidote to the problem, but a manifestation of the problem on steroids. Tub thumping populist offering the most simplistic analysis and policies possible, voters amenable to it because they are simply following the remorseless logic of the current structure of politics. Everyone needs to step back from this particular death spiral and embrace the virtue of complexity and nuance, and recognise that good outcomes require patience and determination and cannot be achieved 10seconds after passing a bill through parliament.
I'm afraid this hoary sentiment is ringing increasingly hollow. Effective policies that change peoples' lives for the better are not 'difficult' - they are however often stymied by a state and administrative structure that actively opposes their implementation, along with powerful corporate interests who also like things the way they are. Elected politicians have all the responsibility when things go wrong, and none of the power. Any Government that wishes to bring about positive change is going to have to take back the power to govern before they can do anything. Neither Starmer's Labour nor Sunak's Tories are going to do that.
Well complex and difficult aren’t the same thing. I’m afraid the Trussite conspiracy theory to pretend that she and other politicians aren’t simply inadequate is incredibly stupid. There’s a kernel of truth that all institutions are susceptible to groupthink, but there are intelligent ways of dealing with that. Pretending that the institutions of government are vast conspiracies against politicians might comfort the terminally inadequate but I’m afraid they are just another iteration of the simplistic narrative approach.
It is not necessary to imagine a vast conspiracy, that's a straw man. It is enough to observe and document repeated practical examples of governments with a democratic mandate being prevented from implementing policy by administrators in various ways. That is corrosive to peoples' faith in the democratic process and leads to nothing of value being achieved.
The proportion of losses caused by drone strikes is just incredible. No army from any country is going to be able to go into the field without both fleets of offensive drones and some form of protection from them. Our current army is no longer really fit for purpose.
Last night Sunak repeated his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence and Starmer refused, again, to match it. In the short term, as we catch up with the evolution of warfare in Ukraine, the question has to be whether 2.5% is enough.
I think Casino argued around 3.5% would be needed. Of course, x% of GDP goes a bit further if GDP is higher.
Claire Coutinho did a good job on Today just now. Kept repeating the £2,000 line and actually made a reasonable fist of answering the “what are you proud of in the last 14 years”.
They briefly have their mojo back. Labour needs to find a similar £ accusation that the Tories struggle to rebut.
Mr. Romford, while clear victories for Sunak in the secondary questions, he's still well above the Con's 20-25%, so even that is probably a net positive.
That said, like me, most people will not have seen the debates and most people do not get their news from the Tory press. It could be that the price of an hour of claiming a £2000 Labour tax rise is incoming will be paid for by four weeks of everyone outside the Tory press - including, crucially, the broadcasters - explaining why it's not true. You can get away with that kind of thing when you have the benefit of the doubt but Sunak and the Tories squandered that a long time ago. I can see why Sunak pressed the claim but I'm not convinced it will turn out to be anything like a gamechanger.
Wasn't the lesson of the Brexit campaign that the more you try to explain away a numerical "lie" from the other side, the more you amplify the original claim, and the more you reinforce its fundamental message?
The last thing Labour want to do for the next four weeks is to spend that time earnestly explaining that tax rises will only be £1000, or £200, or whatever other figure that people won't trust, but will just take the message that Labour will put up taxes.
Labour will just say it is a lie. Because it is. What matters is how it is covered.
I didn't watch the debate, but as Tory, and not seeing anything in print about Starmer making a mistake, it has to be a win for Starmer. Major was as dull as ditchwater....
He was certainly focused on not making a mistake and emphasising 14 wasted years. He knows he's got this. But May knew she had it too when she tried to make an entire campaign out of strong and stable. People get both bored and disenchanted with that form of campaigning.
They don't just get bored and disenchanted when a PM who had previously promised not to call an election, and then goes ahead and calls an unnecessary GE despite a small majority simple based on the polls at the time.. Well that came back to bite Teresa May on the behookie. And despite the polls, Keir Starmer and Labour have not got this in the bag because they have failed to tell us how they will do things differently and how they will fund it. Scrutiny of Labours blank taxation manifesto policy vacum is Reforms worst nightmare.
Have you made any calculations on how it will save a lot of money? Because it seems to me that postponing death and disease isn't necessarily going to save any money - it might do the opposite.
Living longer isn't the problem. Living your last years with chronic disease (or cancer) is what really costs the NHS. Not everyone costs the NHS massive amounts in their final years.
I'm making assumptions, I acknowledge, but it already seems quite likely that these drugs reduce the incidence of both those things (there also seems to be an effect on dementia).
It's too soon to make calculations - and the costs of the drugs before they go generic will be a big factor - but organisations like NICE will be getting very interested.
You’re right to be optimistic. So many sudden advances are being made as technology gets to grips with priorly intractable medical problems - from cancer to dementia to obesity to basic ageing
In ten years we could add twenty HEALTHY years to the average life
That would undoubtedly be a great thing in many ways - assuming people realised it couldn't all be added onto their retirement. Would rather delay the predictions of global population starting to decline.
We are on the precipice of multiple transformations, which will render much of our political debate trivial if not ridiculous
No, they'll just change the terms of the debate.
And in any event much of our political debate over the last four decades has been ridiculous. It's almost completely ignored, for example, the structural problems set up by Thatcher's period in government (and perpetuated under Blair/Brown).
Average age 23. I guess all the middle aged and old people have fled? Or they don't come out. There are lots of beautiful young women (of course, it is Ukraine), but a large number of young men. I think these must be Ukrainian soldiers, and they come here for R n R
I can report that downtown Odessa is weirdly idyllic on a fresh, warm, cloudless summer morning. I've set up my office on my hotel balcony, so I can get a good view of any missiles though it's probably not ideal in terms of shrapnel. We had an air raid warning early morning, everyone ignored it. I am staring down Alexandrovsky street, three blocks from Potemkin Steps
War produces oddities. Last night I discovered a very high class supermarket next to my hotel which offers jamon iberica de bellota shaved newly from the bone (and a superb variety of cheeses, charcuterie, amazing fresh fruit, fine wines). I can't work out if Odessa still has a concentration of rich people, somehow, or this is luxury demanded by returning soldiers (can't blame them)
And at night Odessa is rhapsodically quiet. Curfew kicks in around 11pm, much of the portable generated electricity is switched off. There are no cars, no engines, nothing, it is quieter than Venice, the street-trees whisper under the stars. And you can hear birdsong half a mile away, as the rosy Odessan dawn arrives, the slant light shining on the pale green Italianate terraces. Peculiar yet blissful
Just an FYI, the official advice in the event of air raid sirens is to get inside, as close as possible to the core of the building you’re in, and away from any windows which should have the heavy curtains drawn. In an hotel room, that probably means in the bathroom with the door closed behind you, or moving to the basement from common areas.
Of course, nine times out of 10 it turns out there’s no incoming missile close to you…
Have you made any calculations on how it will save a lot of money? Because it seems to me that postponing death and disease isn't necessarily going to save any money - it might do the opposite.
Living longer isn't the problem. Living your last years with chronic disease (or cancer) is what really costs the NHS. Not everyone costs the NHS massive amounts in their final years.
I'm making assumptions, I acknowledge, but it already seems quite likely that these drugs reduce the incidence of both those things (there also seems to be an effect on dementia).
It's too soon to make calculations - and the costs of the drugs before they go generic will be a big factor - but organisations like NICE will be getting very interested.
You’re right to be optimistic. So many sudden advances are being made as technology gets to grips with priorly intractable medical problems - from cancer to dementia to obesity to basic ageing
In ten years we could add twenty HEALTHY years to the average life
That would undoubtedly be a great thing in many ways - assuming people realised it couldn't all be added onto their retirement. Would rather delay the predictions of global population starting to decline.
We are on the precipice of multiple transformations, which will render much of our political debate trivial if not ridiculous
No, they'll just change the terms of the debate.
And in any event much of our political debate over the last four decades has been ridiculous. It's almost completely ignored, for example, the structural problems set up by Thatcher's period in government (and perpetuated under Blair/Brown).
No, the entire debate is going to change, the world will not be recognisable
The proportion of losses caused by drone strikes is just incredible. No army from any country is going to be able to go into the field without both fleets of offensive drones and some form of protection from them. Our current army is no longer really fit for purpose.
Last night Sunak repeated his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence and Starmer refused, again, to match it. In the short term, as we catch up with the evolution of warfare in Ukraine, the question has to be whether 2.5% is enough.
Labour made a commitment to 2.5% for Defence on April 12, in advance of the Tories. I think it very likely that we will spend the money poorly, without really thinking through what is needed for modern war.
I wonder how many of their polling sample even watched it. In fact, do we have a number for how many watched it? I think this polling reflects the current polling where Starmer is streets ahead. I don't agree with their conclusion on the debate but actually this result is more significant. Starmer remains comfortably ahead in the public's perception.
The polling must be of people who watched the debate. If it wasn't, Starmer would surely have won the headline question a lot more convincingly.
It will be polling of people who said they watched the debate. But even on here there were a surprising number who didn't bother and we are largely obsessives about this sort of thing. Neither of these leaders is exactly catching the public's imagination. 1997 this isn't.
Claire Coutinho did a good job on Today just now. Kept repeating the £2,000 line and actually made a reasonable fist of answering the “what are you proud of in the last 14 years”.
They briefly have their mojo back. Labour needs to find a similar £ accusation that the Tories struggle to rebut.
Was just about to type the same thing but also ask those who know how safe her seat is. Could be one to watch as a future leader if the remnants of the party are slanted towards the centrists rather than the nutters. Fairly telegenic and was calm and assured.
Otherwise I’m glad to see that Keir Starmer’s experience as DPP with his skills as a forensic prosecutor smashed Rishi in the debates last night.
Managing to keep Rishi down to a measly 51% in the snap poll whilst being miles ahead in party and personal polling is something special.
That said, like me, most people will not have seen the debates and most people do not get their news from the Tory press. It could be that the price of an hour of claiming a £2000 Labour tax rise is incoming will be paid for by four weeks of everyone outside the Tory press - including, crucially, the broadcasters - explaining why it's not true. You can get away with that kind of thing when you have the benefit of the doubt but Sunak and the Tories squandered that a long time ago. I can see why Sunak pressed the claim but I'm not convinced it will turn out to be anything like a gamechanger.
Wasn't the lesson of the Brexit campaign that the more you try to explain away a numerical "lie" from the other side, the more you amplify the original claim, and the more you reinforce its fundamental message?
The last thing Labour want to do for the next four weeks is to spend that time earnestly explaining that tax rises will only be £1000, or £200, or whatever other figure that people won't trust, but will just take the message that Labour will put up taxes.
Labour will just say it is a lie. Because it is. What matters is how it is covered.
Labour suffer the more it is covered at all, because most people will only hear, "Labour tax rises," and not the more complicated, "Tory claims about Labour tax rises are a lie."
An effective counter from Labour might be to simply use OBR figures to show how much the Tories have already increased taxes.
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
I can report that downtown Odessa is weirdly idyllic on a fresh, warm, cloudless summer morning. I've set up my office on my hotel balcony, so I can get a good view of any missiles though it's probably not ideal in terms of shrapnel. We had an air raid warning early morning, everyone ignored it. I am staring down Alexandrovsky street, three blocks from Potemkin Steps
War produces oddities. Last night I discovered a very high class supermarket next to my hotel which offers jamon iberica de bellota shaved newly from the bone (and a superb variety of cheeses, charcuterie, amazing fresh fruit, fine wines). I can't work out if Odessa still has a concentration of rich people, somehow, or this is luxury demanded by returning soldiers (can't blame them)
And at night Odessa is rhapsodically quiet. Curfew kicks in around 11pm, much of the portable generated electricity is switched off. There are no cars, no engines, nothing, it is quieter than Venice, the street-trees whisper under the stars. And you can hear birdsong half a mile away, as the rosy Odessan dawn arrives, the slant light shining on the pale green Italianate terraces. Peculiar yet blissful
Just an FYI, the official advice in the event of air raid sirens is to get inside, as close as possible to the core of the building you’re in, and away from any windows which should have the heavy curtains drawn. In an hotel room, that probably means in the bathroom with the door closed behind you, or moving to the basement from common areas.
Of course, nine times out of 10 it turns out there’s no incoming missile close to you…
Ta. I may sound chilled, but I am keeping a close eye on War Monitor on Telegram - I used it in Lviv and Chernivtsi last year, and I am even more attuned to it now. Odesa does get hit quite regularly - there was a missile attack yesterday
"Not a very good morning in Odesa. It started with explosions and a missile attack. Tired and sleepy, but definitely unbroken. There's no power, and the connection is very poor. And today, I have a hospital visit...:"
Women are not just the walk-on parts and support humans in the drama of men’s lives. You don’t get to just decide that ‘womanhood’ (whatever the hell that means) is a country you can give away to male people to reward them at the end of their heroic quests. Women are whole human people with our own needs and interests, and in order to protect our own needs and interests we need to have our own definition in law. The fact that we are still having to explain why we have a legitimate political interest in our own legal definition, that you don’t just get to give it away to other ‘more important’ people because they want it, and that we have every right to defend our own political interests without being called mean witches, is, I will always maintain, one of the greatest demonstrations of sexism I have ever witnessed in my life.
I mean, seriously. With everything that women have to put up with, the idea that a legal definition of womanhood is in any way the 'greatest demonstration of sexism' seems a rather silly thing to say.
Claire Coutinho did a good job on Today just now. Kept repeating the £2,000 line and actually made a reasonable fist of answering the “what are you proud of in the last 14 years”.
They briefly have their mojo back. Labour needs to find a similar £ accusation that the Tories struggle to rebut.
Was just about to type the same thing but also ask those who know how safe her seat is. Could be one to watch as a future leader if the remnants of the party are slanted towards the centrists rather than the nutters. Fairly telegenic and was calm and assured.
Otherwise I’m glad to see that Keir Starmer’s experience as DPP with his skills as a forensic prosecutor smashed Rishi in the debates last night.
Managing to keep Rishi down to a measly 51% in the snap poll whilst being miles ahead in party and personal polling is something special.
She is in East Surrey, had a 40 point margin over the Lib Dem’s last time. Should squeak back in.
That said, like me, most people will not have seen the debates and most people do not get their news from the Tory press. It could be that the price of an hour of claiming a £2000 Labour tax rise is incoming will be paid for by four weeks of everyone outside the Tory press - including, crucially, the broadcasters - explaining why it's not true. You can get away with that kind of thing when you have the benefit of the doubt but Sunak and the Tories squandered that a long time ago. I can see why Sunak pressed the claim but I'm not convinced it will turn out to be anything like a gamechanger.
Wasn't the lesson of the Brexit campaign that the more you try to explain away a numerical "lie" from the other side, the more you amplify the original claim, and the more you reinforce its fundamental message?
The last thing Labour want to do for the next four weeks is to spend that time earnestly explaining that tax rises will only be £1000, or £200, or whatever other figure that people won't trust, but will just take the message that Labour will put up taxes.
Labour will just say it is a lie. Because it is. What matters is how it is covered.
Labour suffer the more it is covered at all, because most people will only hear, "Labour tax rises," and not the more complicated, "Tory claims about Labour tax rises are a lie."
An effective counter from Labour might be to simply use OBR figures to show how much the Tories have already increased taxes.
What people hear is conditioned by experience and knowledge. People know that their taxes have gone up massively under the Tories and they know the Tories have a track record of telling huge porkies. As I say, it comes down to the benefit of the doubt. The Tories have squandered it entirely.
Average age 23. I guess all the middle aged and old people have fled? Or they don't come out. There are lots of beautiful young women (of course, it is Ukraine), but a large number of young men. I think these must be Ukrainian soldiers, and they come here for R n R
Doesn't conscription only kick in at 25 in Ukraine?
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Well yes but when youre leader of the Opposition and potential PM the system wont be treating you as Joe Bloggs.
The proportion of losses caused by drone strikes is just incredible. No army from any country is going to be able to go into the field without both fleets of offensive drones and some form of protection from them. Our current army is no longer really fit for purpose.
Last night Sunak repeated his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence and Starmer refused, again, to match it. In the short term, as we catch up with the evolution of warfare in Ukraine, the question has to be whether 2.5% is enough.
Labour made a commitment to 2.5% for Defence on April 12, in advance of the Tories. I think it very likely that we will spend the money poorly, without really thinking through what is needed for modern war.
Defence procurement has been a mess for decades now. Hopefully a realisation of what a modern defensive war actually looks like, will start to drive future decision-making.
A good starting point would be for everyone in NATO to agree to streamline common procurement, and that most of the increased budgets be spent on a limited number of specific areas such as small drones and artillery ammunition. Each country needs to stop re-inventing the wheel for its own specific requirements, and to please its own vested interests.
The current problem isn’t the state of technology, it’s the sheer numbers of equipment required. Having 50 brand new next-gen main battle tanks, means little when you lose half a dozen per day. Let’s build 500 of the last-gen version instead, and half a million rounds of ammo for them.
Claire Coutinho did a good job on Today just now. Kept repeating the £2,000 line and actually made a reasonable fist of answering the “what are you proud of in the last 14 years”.
They briefly have their mojo back. Labour needs to find a similar £ accusation that the Tories struggle to rebut.
Was just about to type the same thing but also ask those who know how safe her seat is. Could be one to watch as a future leader if the remnants of the party are slanted towards the centrists rather than the nutters. Fairly telegenic and was calm and assured.
Otherwise I’m glad to see that Keir Starmer’s experience as DPP with his skills as a forensic prosecutor smashed Rishi in the debates last night.
Managing to keep Rishi down to a measly 51% in the snap poll whilst being miles ahead in party and personal polling is something special.
She is in East Surrey, had a 40 point margin over the Lib Dem’s last time. Should squeak back in.
In contrast to her interview I’m now listening to Johnathan Ashworth and my god I’ve never heard someone who sounds so sour. Like some Roald Dahl character.
The proportion of losses caused by drone strikes is just incredible. No army from any country is going to be able to go into the field without both fleets of offensive drones and some form of protection from them. Our current army is no longer really fit for purpose.
Last night Sunak repeated his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence and Starmer refused, again, to match it. In the short term, as we catch up with the evolution of warfare in Ukraine, the question has to be whether 2.5% is enough.
Whilst I tend to think that defence spending should rise, I don’t think the absolute level of spending is the entire ball game. How you spend money is just as important as how much money you spend. A genuine strategic defence and security review, not a mislabelled cost cutting exercise, should be conducted. It is clear the risks and threats to peace and security are growing not shrinking and look likely to be persistent over the medium term horizon and that requires a robust response and a retuning of posture.
To give the MoD more money in its current form is to waste it. Actually, it's worst than worst because it's not just spending money to zero or very little effect, it's actually socially destructive to allocate yet more money to defence.
This video released by Macron is really very good. He does the statesman side of his job far better than the domestic political stuff. Plus I never realised Mme Macron spoke English.
The proportion of losses caused by drone strikes is just incredible. No army from any country is going to be able to go into the field without both fleets of offensive drones and some form of protection from them. Our current army is no longer really fit for purpose.
Last night Sunak repeated his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence and Starmer refused, again, to match it. In the short term, as we catch up with the evolution of warfare in Ukraine, the question has to be whether 2.5% is enough.
Labour made a commitment to 2.5% for Defence on April 12, in advance of the Tories. I think it very likely that we will spend the money poorly, without really thinking through what is needed for modern war.
Defence procurement has been a mess for decades now. Hopefully a realisation of what a modern defensive war actually looks like, will start to drive future decision-making.
A good starting point would be for everyone in NATO to agree to streamline common procurement, and that most of the increased budgets be spent on a limited number of specific areas such as small drones and artillery ammunition. Each country needs to stop re-inventing the wheel for its own specific requirements, and to please its own vested interests.
The current problem isn’t the state of technology, it’s the sheer numbers of equipment required. Having 50 brand new next-gen main battle tanks, means little when you lose half a dozen per day. Let’s build 500 of the last-gen version instead, and half a million rounds of ammo for them.
Part of that is simply de-industrialisation. Which is one of the structural problems I referred to earlier. That will be a problem for us in Leon's AI age, too.
Average age 23. I guess all the middle aged and old people have fled? Or they don't come out. There are lots of beautiful young women (of course, it is Ukraine), but a large number of young men. I think these must be Ukrainian soldiers, and they come here for R n R
Doesn't conscription only kick in at 25 in Ukraine?
Yes, but you can still volunteer under that age, and many have - IIRC
The proportion of losses caused by drone strikes is just incredible. No army from any country is going to be able to go into the field without both fleets of offensive drones and some form of protection from them. Our current army is no longer really fit for purpose.
Last night Sunak repeated his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence and Starmer refused, again, to match it. In the short term, as we catch up with the evolution of warfare in Ukraine, the question has to be whether 2.5% is enough.
Labour made a commitment to 2.5% for Defence on April 12, in advance of the Tories. I think it very likely that we will spend the money poorly, without really thinking through what is needed for modern war.
Well, he wouldn't commit himself to that last night. Sunak said it about 3x and he never contradicted it. Was that because he was just so poor at responding to any of the attacks? It took him forever to respond to the £2k jibe as well. For a KC he's really not fast on his feet.
The proportion of losses caused by drone strikes is just incredible. No army from any country is going to be able to go into the field without both fleets of offensive drones and some form of protection from them. Our current army is no longer really fit for purpose.
Last night Sunak repeated his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence and Starmer refused, again, to match it. In the short term, as we catch up with the evolution of warfare in Ukraine, the question has to be whether 2.5% is enough.
Labour made a commitment to 2.5% for Defence on April 12, in advance of the Tories. I think it very likely that we will spend the money poorly, without really thinking through what is needed for modern war.
Well, he wouldn't commit himself to that last night. Sunak said it about 3x and he never contradicted it. Was that because he was just so poor at responding to any of the attacks? It took him forever to respond to the £2k jibe as well. For a KC he's really not fast on his feet.
Not so much KC as KGB - he is used to asking the questions not answering them
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Well yes but when youre leader of the Opposition and potential PM the system wont be treating you as Joe Bloggs.
Indeed. Nevertheless a remarkable assumption on this board that the person responsible for the NHS would obviously say "Personally I wouldn't touch the NHS with a bargepole" when essentially the entire population is dependent on it for its healthcare.
I didn't watch the debate, but as Tory, and not seeing anything in print about Starmer making a mistake, it has to be a win for Starmer. Major was as dull as ditchwater....
He was certainly focused on not making a mistake and emphasising 14 wasted years. He knows he's got this. But May knew she had it too when she tried to make an entire campaign out of strong and stable. People get both bored and disenchanted with that form of campaigning.
They don't just get bored and disenchanted when a PM who had previously promised not to call an election, and then goes ahead and calls an unnecessary GE despite a small majority simple based on the polls at the time.. Well that came back to bite Teresa May on the behookie. And despite the polls, Keir Starmer and Labour have not got this in the bag because they have failed to tell us how they will do things differently and how they will fund it. Scrutiny of Labours blank taxation manifesto policy vacum is Reforms worst nightmare.
They have it in the bag because voters want rid of this Tory Party at all costs. Picture a pneumatic drill outside your front door. No one cares what is involved or how much it might cost just as long as someone guarantees to get rid of it
Women are not just the walk-on parts and support humans in the drama of men’s lives. You don’t get to just decide that ‘womanhood’ (whatever the hell that means) is a country you can give away to male people to reward them at the end of their heroic quests. Women are whole human people with our own needs and interests, and in order to protect our own needs and interests we need to have our own definition in law. The fact that we are still having to explain why we have a legitimate political interest in our own legal definition, that you don’t just get to give it away to other ‘more important’ people because they want it, and that we have every right to defend our own political interests without being called mean witches, is, I will always maintain, one of the greatest demonstrations of sexism I have ever witnessed in my life.
I mean, seriously. With everything that women have to put up with, the idea that a legal definition of womanhood is in any way the 'greatest demonstration of sexism' seems a rather silly thing to say.
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
This probably explains the Labour line this morning, which is that Richi is a liar just like BoZo, the number is a lie, the story about how it was produced is a lie.
I actually like it, if you assume that The Middle Britons and Left-Behind Patriots voted for Bozo in 2019 you can see why the Tories have such a problem at the moment..
And it's those Left Behind Patriots that it seems that Rishi was targetting which is now going to be very difficult with Nigel back campaigning.
Watched the debate last night. Rishi wiped the floor with SKS. Who would have thought a Chief Prosecutor could be a poor debater with such a whiny voice. What more, he let Rishi get away with bombshell comments such as "pensioner`s tax" and "If you think Labour are getting in, you better start saving!". SKS has to do better the next time around or there`s going to be some consequences.
Morning all, at least we are one day closer to it all being over; election wise and at a cosmic level! I’m beginning to wonder if the mess politics has got itself into is a toxic relationship between politicians and the electorate. The politicians pretending that incredibly complex issues have simplistic solutions and the voters responding by demanding even more areas of policy are subjected to oversimplification. The end result is that a sizeable chunk of the electorate give up on the whole process and another chunk get seduced by the pied piper of the most egregiously simplistic and counterproductive policies.
The debates and social media are symptomatic of this trend as politicians are now being asked to boil policy down to fit in a 45 second debate response or a 30 second TikTok video. It’s not healthy, it’s not even sane. The consequence is that politicians are expected to be able to walk in and solve national problems simply by showing up and when that doesn’t happen because it’s unrealistic voters turn with savage ferocity. Hence the stunning reverse the Tories are subject to at this election, their promises last time were entirely unrealistic and that having transpired voters move on to the next snake oil salesman. The warning for Labour is clear that when they can’t deliver the new Jerusalem simply by getting elected the voters will turn on them savagely.
In this sense Farage isn’t an antidote to the problem, but a manifestation of the problem on steroids. Tub thumping populist offering the most simplistic analysis and policies possible, voters amenable to it because they are simply following the remorseless logic of the current structure of politics. Everyone needs to step back from this particular death spiral and embrace the virtue of complexity and nuance, and recognise that good outcomes require patience and determination and cannot be achieved 10seconds after passing a bill through parliament.
I'm afraid this hoary sentiment is ringing increasingly hollow. Effective policies that change peoples' lives for the better are not 'difficult' - they are however often stymied by a state and administrative structure that actively opposes their implementation, along with powerful corporate interests who also like things the way they are. Elected politicians have all the responsibility when things go wrong, and none of the power. Any Government that wishes to bring about positive change is going to have to take back the power to govern before they can do anything. Neither Starmer's Labour nor Sunak's Tories are going to do that.
Well complex and difficult aren’t the same thing. I’m afraid the Trussite conspiracy theory to pretend that she and other politicians aren’t simply inadequate is incredibly stupid. There’s a kernel of truth that all institutions are susceptible to groupthink, but there are intelligent ways of dealing with that. Pretending that the institutions of government are vast conspiracies against politicians might comfort the terminally inadequate but I’m afraid they are just another iteration of the simplistic narrative approach.
It is not necessary to imagine a vast conspiracy, that's a straw man. It is enough to observe and document repeated practical examples of governments with a democratic mandate being prevented from implementing policy by administrators in various ways. That is corrosive to peoples' faith in the democratic process and leads to nothing of value being achieved.
Part of being a successful leader is knowing how to manage people.
If you get promoted to be in charge of thousands of people and can't manage (effectively) your employees to do what you want, that is on you. If you're the Prime Minister and can't get the Civil Service to carry out your policies, you're just not very good at the job.
Swanning around and saying "lah de dah, we will do X Y and Z and here's a bill to enact it" is the easy bit. Any middle manager can push out a policy saying "from henceforth we shall only use yellow paper and we will address all customers as Thou/Thine", email it round the office and pin it up on the coffee room noticeboard. Making it happen is the hard part.
Truss was demonstrably shit at this. Sunak isn't much better. Thatcher and Blair, evidently, managed it pretty well.
(Not just a central Government thing, of course. Our local County Council suffers from exactly the same malaise. No conspiracy here either, just a failure by the cabinet post-holders to manage their departments.)
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
The proportion of losses caused by drone strikes is just incredible. No army from any country is going to be able to go into the field without both fleets of offensive drones and some form of protection from them. Our current army is no longer really fit for purpose.
Last night Sunak repeated his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence and Starmer refused, again, to match it. In the short term, as we catch up with the evolution of warfare in Ukraine, the question has to be whether 2.5% is enough.
Labour made a commitment to 2.5% for Defence on April 12, in advance of the Tories. I think it very likely that we will spend the money poorly, without really thinking through what is needed for modern war.
Defence procurement has been a mess for decades now. Hopefully a realisation of what a modern defensive war actually looks like, will start to drive future decision-making.
A good starting point would be for everyone in NATO to agree to streamline common procurement, and that most of the increased budgets be spent on a limited number of specific areas such as small drones and artillery ammunition. Each country needs to stop re-inventing the wheel for its own specific requirements, and to please its own vested interests.
The current problem isn’t the state of technology, it’s the sheer numbers of equipment required. Having 50 brand new next-gen main battle tanks, means little when you lose half a dozen per day. Let’s build 500 of the last-gen version instead, and half a million rounds of ammo for them.
A significant issue is that warfare can change very rapidly. For nearly twenty years we were fighting insurgencies in two countries, so we pivoted our military more to fight that. Whereas now we're back to a conventional-war-in-Europe style situation - one we're even more unsuited for because of the last couple of decades of insurgency fighting.
Even an economy the size of the US's finds it hard to cover all possible scenarios. Should they concentrate on forces at sea to counter China over Taiwan, or land forces to counter Russia?
It's always the question: which threat(s) should we concentrate on? And the threats are not always visible, except with hindsight after the event.
Then there's the sad old fact that technology is costly to develop, buy, run and maintain, and modern weapons systems are massively complex. And might be destroyed by a new weapon (e.g. drones) that cost a hundredth or thousandth the cost.
I'm unsure what the answer is: more flexibility perhaps, and an improved domestic infrastructure. But I cannot conceive of a way we can match all the potential threats there are.
I didn't watch the debate, but as Tory, and not seeing anything in print about Starmer making a mistake, it has to be a win for Starmer. Major was as dull as ditchwater....
He was certainly focused on not making a mistake and emphasising 14 wasted years. He knows he's got this. But May knew she had it too when she tried to make an entire campaign out of strong and stable. People get both bored and disenchanted with that form of campaigning.
They don't just get bored and disenchanted when a PM who had previously promised not to call an election, and then goes ahead and calls an unnecessary GE despite a small majority simple based on the polls at the time.. Well that came back to bite Teresa May on the behookie. And despite the polls, Keir Starmer and Labour have not got this in the bag because they have failed to tell us how they will do things differently and how they will fund it. Scrutiny of Labours blank taxation manifesto policy vacum is Reforms worst nightmare.
They have it in the bag because voters want rid of this Tory Party at all costs. Picture a pneumatic drill outside your front door. No one cares what is involved or how much it might cost just as long as someone guarantees to get rid of it
It's just you dont want it replaced by a pile diver thumping away to install next door's ground heat pump.
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Nobody would refuse private treatment, had they the money, and if it was quicker. No one would endure pain (and possible risk to health), for the sake of commitment to the NHS.
The proportion of losses caused by drone strikes is just incredible. No army from any country is going to be able to go into the field without both fleets of offensive drones and some form of protection from them. Our current army is no longer really fit for purpose.
Last night Sunak repeated his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence and Starmer refused, again, to match it. In the short term, as we catch up with the evolution of warfare in Ukraine, the question has to be whether 2.5% is enough.
Labour made a commitment to 2.5% for Defence on April 12, in advance of the Tories. I think it very likely that we will spend the money poorly, without really thinking through what is needed for modern war.
Defence procurement has been a mess for decades now. Hopefully a realisation of what a modern defensive war actually looks like, will start to drive future decision-making.
A good starting point would be for everyone in NATO to agree to streamline common procurement, and that most of the increased budgets be spent on a limited number of specific areas such as small drones and artillery ammunition. Each country needs to stop re-inventing the wheel for its own specific requirements, and to please its own vested interests.
The current problem isn’t the state of technology, it’s the sheer numbers of equipment required. Having 50 brand new next-gen main battle tanks, means little when you lose half a dozen per day. Let’s build 500 of the last-gen version instead, and half a million rounds of ammo for them.
I agree with your last point. We are not going to be fighting USA, France or even China. For our prospective threats we don't need particularly state of the art kit, but rather reliable kit that is standardised enough to be produced in quantity. An aircraft carrier that struggles to leave the Solent is not a great investment.
A bit like covid though, that requires domestic manufacturing capacity, to not be subject to international whims.
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
This probably explains the Labour line this morning, which is that Richi is a liar just like BoZo, the number is a lie, the story about how it was produced is a lie.
Which is all fine; the error was SKS not shutting it down quicker in the debate so as allowing it to run. I don’t think it will have much if any of an impact on the polls but this was an error from the Labour leader in the debate. Thankfully he’s so far ahead I don’t think it will matter, because no one trusts the Tories.
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
He would have been infinitely better off saying “well I would as I’m very fortunate that I can afford private healthcare as I’m a well paid politician but it’s my mission to ensure nobody in this country ever has to after my Premiership. I can take some of the burden off the NHS, sorry, our NHS, that been caused by 14 years of Tory mismanagement but I don’t want anyone to have to in the future.”
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
Claire Coutinho did a good job on Today just now. Kept repeating the £2,000 line and actually made a reasonable fist of answering the “what are you proud of in the last 14 years”.
They briefly have their mojo back. Labour needs to find a similar £ accusation that the Tories struggle to rebut.
Was just about to type the same thing but also ask those who know how safe her seat is. Could be one to watch as a future leader if the remnants of the party are slanted towards the centrists rather than the nutters. Fairly telegenic and was calm and assured.
Otherwise I’m glad to see that Keir Starmer’s experience as DPP with his skills as a forensic prosecutor smashed Rishi in the debates last night.
Managing to keep Rishi down to a measly 51% in the snap poll whilst being miles ahead in party and personal polling is something special.
She is in East Surrey, had a 40 point margin over the Lib Dem’s last time. Should squeak back in.
In contrast to her interview I’m now listening to Johnathan Ashworth and my god I’ve never heard someone who sounds so sour. Like some Roald Dahl character.
He is the Starmerite drone nonpareil. They’ve obviously wargamed their response to Sunak’s £2000 zinger to be ‘Tory lies’ and ‘absolute garbage’ which while probably accurate gives a teeny sense of them being rattled.
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Maybe my Dad and my Uncle were trendsetters years ago in the early years of Devolution in Scotland under Labour when they clubbed together to send their sister private to get her Cataracts done after she was given a lengthy waiting time on the SNHS . Starmer gave the wrong answer and Sunak gave the right answer, especially when you consider that they can both afford to step with private health care...
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
This probably explains the Labour line this morning, which is that Richi is a liar just like BoZo, the number is a lie, the story about how it was produced is a lie.
The presentation itself is also a lie it's not £2000 a year it's £2000 during the next 4 years...
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
He would have been infinitely better off saying “well I would as I’m very fortunate that I can afford private healthcare as I’m a well paid politician but it’s my mission to ensure nobody in this country ever has to after my Premiership. I can take some of the burden off the NHS, sorry, our NHS, that been caused by 14 years of Tory mismanagement but I don’t want anyone to have to in the future.”
If he was a better politician then that was the answer
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
This probably explains the Labour line this morning, which is that Richi is a liar just like BoZo, the number is a lie, the story about how it was produced is a lie.
The presentation itself is also a lie it's not £2000 a year it's £2000 during the next 4 years...
The more Labour bang on about their tax bombshell the more they look shifty and drum it in to the electorates mind.
The proportion of losses caused by drone strikes is just incredible. No army from any country is going to be able to go into the field without both fleets of offensive drones and some form of protection from them. Our current army is no longer really fit for purpose.
Last night Sunak repeated his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence and Starmer refused, again, to match it. In the short term, as we catch up with the evolution of warfare in Ukraine, the question has to be whether 2.5% is enough.
Labour made a commitment to 2.5% for Defence on April 12, in advance of the Tories. I think it very likely that we will spend the money poorly, without really thinking through what is needed for modern war.
Defence procurement has been a mess for decades now. Hopefully a realisation of what a modern defensive war actually looks like, will start to drive future decision-making.
A good starting point would be for everyone in NATO to agree to streamline common procurement, and that most of the increased budgets be spent on a limited number of specific areas such as small drones and artillery ammunition. Each country needs to stop re-inventing the wheel for its own specific requirements, and to please its own vested interests.
The current problem isn’t the state of technology, it’s the sheer numbers of equipment required. Having 50 brand new next-gen main battle tanks, means little when you lose half a dozen per day. Let’s build 500 of the last-gen version instead, and half a million rounds of ammo for them.
I agree with your last point. We are not going to be fighting USA, France or even China. For our prospective threats we don't need particularly state of the art kit, but rather reliable kit that is standardised enough to be produced in quantity. An aircraft carrier that struggles to leave the Solent is not a great investment.
A bit like covid though, that requires domestic manufacturing capacity, to not be subject to international whims.
They should definitely be trying to sell the aircraft carriers to India or anywhere who thinks they need them. Spend the proceeds on off the shelf air defence kit, anti sub warfare kit and improving military housing to encourage people to join and then to stay.
The proportion of losses caused by drone strikes is just incredible. No army from any country is going to be able to go into the field without both fleets of offensive drones and some form of protection from them. Our current army is no longer really fit for purpose.
Last night Sunak repeated his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence and Starmer refused, again, to match it. In the short term, as we catch up with the evolution of warfare in Ukraine, the question has to be whether 2.5% is enough.
Labour made a commitment to 2.5% for Defence on April 12, in advance of the Tories. I think it very likely that we will spend the money poorly, without really thinking through what is needed for modern war.
Defence procurement has been a mess for decades now. Hopefully a realisation of what a modern defensive war actually looks like, will start to drive future decision-making.
A good starting point would be for everyone in NATO to agree to streamline common procurement, and that most of the increased budgets be spent on a limited number of specific areas such as small drones and artillery ammunition. Each country needs to stop re-inventing the wheel for its own specific requirements, and to please its own vested interests.
The current problem isn’t the state of technology, it’s the sheer numbers of equipment required. Having 50 brand new next-gen main battle tanks, means little when you lose half a dozen per day. Let’s build 500 of the last-gen version instead, and half a million rounds of ammo for them.
A significant issue is that warfare can change very rapidly. For nearly twenty years we were fighting insurgencies in two countries, so we pivoted our military more to fight that. Whereas now we're back to a conventional-war-in-Europe style situation - one we're even more unsuited for because of the last couple of decades of insurgency fighting.
Even an economy the size of the US's finds it hard to cover all possible scenarios. Should they concentrate on forces at sea to counter China over Taiwan, or land forces to counter Russia?
It's always the question: which threat(s) should we concentrate on? And the threats are not always visible, except with hindsight after the event.
Then there's the sad old fact that technology is costly to develop, buy, run and maintain, and modern weapons systems are massively complex. And might be destroyed by a new weapon (e.g. drones) that cost a hundredth or thousandth the cost.
I'm unsure what the answer is: more flexibility perhaps, and an improved domestic infrastructure. But I cannot conceive of a way we can match all the potential threats there are.
You can only really work out how to win a war, by fighting it. I was at a lecture/dinner about Slim’s Burma campaign, last night, and it was fascinating to hear how Slim spent 18 months ditching almost every aspect of British military orthodoxy, before taking the war to the Japanese.
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
He would have been infinitely better off saying “well I would as I’m very fortunate that I can afford private healthcare as I’m a well paid politician but it’s my mission to ensure nobody in this country ever has to after my Premiership. I can take some of the burden off the NHS, sorry, our NHS, that been caused by 14 years of Tory mismanagement but I don’t want anyone to have to in the future.”
The correct answer was:
when we left power in 2010 there was no need. Now I hate the idea but due to Tory spending cuts and the massively increased waiting lists for many people it's unavoidable. We will do everything we can to return things back yo how they were before the Tories came into power.
However that isn't a short enough soundbite nowadays.
Also it was a Yes No question so you can't really use 3 sentences instead of 1 word.
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
This probably explains the Labour line this morning, which is that Richi is a liar just like BoZo, the number is a lie, the story about how it was produced is a lie.
This is the problem with Sunak lying on national television. He got the immediate sugar rush of the stumbling Starmer response and this morning's adulatory Tory press headlines. Now he gets four weeks of the actual truth being shoved in his face. On balance, it's not a plus.
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Private care isn't about emergencies though. Emergency care is pretty much only via the NHS, which is why it matters to us all. A multimillionaire acquaintance of mine found this out when his mum fractured her hip. There is no alternative to the local Emergency Dept in that situation (Bangor in that case).
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
Women are not just the walk-on parts and support humans in the drama of men’s lives. You don’t get to just decide that ‘womanhood’ (whatever the hell that means) is a country you can give away to male people to reward them at the end of their heroic quests. Women are whole human people with our own needs and interests, and in order to protect our own needs and interests we need to have our own definition in law. The fact that we are still having to explain why we have a legitimate political interest in our own legal definition, that you don’t just get to give it away to other ‘more important’ people because they want it, and that we have every right to defend our own political interests without being called mean witches, is, I will always maintain, one of the greatest demonstrations of sexism I have ever witnessed in my life.
I mean, seriously. With everything that women have to put up with, the idea that a legal definition of womanhood is in any way the 'greatest demonstration of sexism' seems a rather silly thing to say.
In which case, I shall tell you to fuck off. And when you have fucked off, fuck off some more.
Charming!
Did you read Cyclefree’s thread, or should she fuck off too?
What is your experience of sexism against women that puts you in a position to explain to a women that her views are “silly”?
This is a site where we discuss politics. You posted something I disagreed with, and I posted a response.
You did not argue with my response; and instead just said 'mansplaining', which I don't think I was.
It does, however, sound as though you are trying to silence any pro-trans voice. Since the majority of them on here are male, you can just shout 'mansplaining!' at them.
You also put 'silly woman' in quotes, which I did not say. I said it was a 'rather silly thing to say'. There's a rather large difference between saying someone said something silly, and calling them a 'silly woman'.
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
This probably explains the Labour line this morning, which is that Richi is a liar just like BoZo, the number is a lie, the story about how it was produced is a lie.
The presentation itself is also a lie it's not £2000 a year it's £2000 during the next 4 years...
The more Labour bang on about their tax bombshell the more they look shifty and drum it in to the electorates mind.
Yep - it's a very decent attack - just incredibly dishonest...
The problem I think Labour has in the debates is that SKS is a lawyer who doesn't want to say anything that is a mistake - hence he doesn't respond to surprises..
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Private care isn't about emergencies though. Emergency care is pretty much only via the NHS, which is why it matters to us all. A multimillionaire acquaintance of mine found this out when his mum fractured her hip. There is no alternative to the local Emergency Dept in that situation (Bangor in that case).
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
He would have been infinitely better off saying “well I would as I’m very fortunate that I can afford private healthcare as I’m a well paid politician but it’s my mission to ensure nobody in this country ever has to after my Premiership. I can take some of the burden off the NHS, sorry, our NHS, that been caused by 14 years of Tory mismanagement but I don’t want anyone to have to in the future.”
He could say that, and it would be the kind of answer I would be looking for. Nevertheless if you want to summarise in one word, No (his answer) is better than Yes (Sunak). I didn't watch the debate but I assume Sunak didn't give the majority of the population that can't afford expedited healthcare reason to be comforted by the fact Sunak can.
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
This probably explains the Labour line this morning, which is that Richi is a liar just like BoZo, the number is a lie, the story about how it was produced is a lie.
The presentation itself is also a lie it's not £2000 a year it's £2000 during the next 4 years...
The more Labour bang on about their tax bombshell the more they look shifty and drum it in to the electorates mind.
It will chime with people who, like you, are anti-Labour. The Tory problem is that most people are not like you!
Claire Coutinho did a good job on Today just now. Kept repeating the £2,000 line and actually made a reasonable fist of answering the “what are you proud of in the last 14 years”.
They briefly have their mojo back. Labour needs to find a similar £ accusation that the Tories struggle to rebut.
Starmer needed to shut it down when first raised. State it's a lie, set out to camera some pledges on tax (income tax and NI) and give some indication of tax raising measures (school VAT and non doms). Doesn't really matter at that point whether the sums add up.
It was a smart move from the Tories. Might save a few votes and gave Sunak a bit of the initiative.
Doubt it changes too much overall, but the red team needed to be better prepared for stuff like this as Starmer isn't great at thinking on his feet.
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
This probably explains the Labour line this morning, which is that Richi is a liar just like BoZo, the number is a lie, the story about how it was produced is a lie.
This is the problem with Sunak lying on national television. He got the immediate sugar rush of the stumbling Starmer response and this morning's adulatory Tory press headlines. Now he gets four weeks of the actual truth being shoved in his face. On balance, it's not a plus.
Yugh: the BBC initially headlined that letter: "Top civil servant's letter casts doubt on Labour tax claim".
Now corrected to: "Top civil servant's letter casts doubt on Tory tax claim"
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Private care isn't about emergencies though. Emergency care is pretty much only via the NHS, which is why it matters to us all. A multimillionaire acquaintance of mine found this out when his mum fractured her hip. There is no alternative to the local Emergency Dept in that situation (Bangor in that case).
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
And emergency care is great once you are past the initial triage / queue in A&E as I found out last week and I suspect TSE discovered yesterday.
In fact the only problem we've encountered is a lack of district nurses which means we are currently visiting the hospital daily for wound dressing because district nurses are too busy and Clinical Decisions don't get many referrals from GPs until late morning so there is capacity between 9-10 to do some quick followups.
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
This probably explains the Labour line this morning, which is that Richi is a liar just like BoZo, the number is a lie, the story about how it was produced is a lie.
The presentation itself is also a lie it's not £2000 a year it's £2000 during the next 4 years...
The more Labour bang on about their tax bombshell the more they look shifty and drum it in to the electorates mind.
Yep - it's a very decent attack - just incredibly dishonest...
The problem I think Labour has in the debates is that SKS is a lawyer who doesn't want to say anything that is a mistake - hence he doesn't respond to surprises..
Labour have created their own downside. They have purposely said little so now anyone can project on to them what they want, and this may end up with them having engage in a real debate.
Starmer's U turn flip flops make this worse as it damages credibility on any rebuttal.
Fun seeing the Tories trying to spin a Sunakgasm after the debate last night. After a torrid couple of weeks I don’t blame them. You’d grab hold of anything. I wonder how they will get on.
For my part, Starmer forgets one important thing, which is that elections are about the future not the past. Truss is relevant in so much as you can’t trust the Tories on tax, or indeed anything. They promised stability and low taxes last time, but delivered the highest taxes on record. Tories say one thing at elections and deliver another.
You can’t believe a word Sunak says. He can’t deliver. That’s the message.
The pollsters asked their panel to ignore preconceptions and tell them who won the debate so in terms of who anyone might vote for it's irrelevant. People form their opinions over a much longer time frame than 50 minutes
Claire Coutinho did a good job on Today just now. Kept repeating the £2,000 line and actually made a reasonable fist of answering the “what are you proud of in the last 14 years”.
They briefly have their mojo back. Labour needs to find a similar £ accusation that the Tories struggle to rebut.
Starmer needed to shut it down when first raised. State it's a lie, set out to camera some pledges on tax (income tax and NI) and give some indication of tax raising measures (school VAT and non doms). Doesn't really matter at that point whether the sums add up.
It was a smart move from the Tories. Might save a few votes and gave Sunak a bit of the initiative.
Doubt it changes too much overall, but the red team needed to be better prepared for stuff like this as Starmer isn't great at thinking on his feet.
There are 2 more of these head to head debates (BBC and Sky) so let's see how they turn out
However, my opinion is that Sunak will have pleased his own side, and Starmer seemed at times unable to respond, but overall I do not expect a great poll bounce and Starmer will still be PM on the 5th July
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Private care isn't about emergencies though. Emergency care is pretty much only via the NHS, which is why it matters to us all. A multimillionaire acquaintance of mine found this out when his mum fractured her hip. There is no alternative to the local Emergency Dept in that situation (Bangor in that case).
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
It would improve the ones that they used.
Require them to use the NHS and State schools in their constituency then!
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
This probably explains the Labour line this morning, which is that Richi is a liar just like BoZo, the number is a lie, the story about how it was produced is a lie.
The presentation itself is also a lie it's not £2000 a year it's £2000 during the next 4 years...
The more Labour bang on about their tax bombshell the more they look shifty and drum it in to the electorates mind.
It will chime with people who, like you, are anti-Labour. The Tory problem is that most people are not like you!
Well hardly as surprise I dont like Labour
However Mrs B who is a wibbly wobbly cant make up her mind type ( and votes across the spectrum ) was asking questions about what this will mean for her pension. So there was a bit of chiming going on.
On the other hand rich Labourites like yourself are no more in tune with "most people" than Starmer so the jury is still out on this one.
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Private care isn't about emergencies though. Emergency care is pretty much only via the NHS, which is why it matters to us all. A multimillionaire acquaintance of mine found this out when his mum fractured her hip. There is no alternative to the local Emergency Dept in that situation (Bangor in that case).
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
And emergency care is great once you are past the initial triage / queue in A&E as I found out last week and I suspect TSE discovered yesterday.
In fact the only problem we've encountered is a lack of district nurses which means we are currently visiting the hospital daily for wound dressing because district nurses are too busy and Clinical Decisions don't get many referrals from GPs until late morning so there is capacity between 9-10 to do some quick followups.
One of the questions facing the next government is going to be what the cheap wins are- the things that are unglamorous (not new hospitals), fairly cheap, but ungum the sticking points in the system. Because there clearly are some.
And on tax bombshellgate... one of the tactics Starmer used with the Corbynites was giving them just enough rope to hang themselves. Not always pretty, and it doesn't always work. But one of the marks of a good chess player is that, if they lose a pawn by a blunder, they manage to get compensation for that.
Claire Coutinho did a good job on Today just now. Kept repeating the £2,000 line and actually made a reasonable fist of answering the “what are you proud of in the last 14 years”.
They briefly have their mojo back. Labour needs to find a similar £ accusation that the Tories struggle to rebut.
Starmer needed to shut it down when first raised. State it's a lie, set out to camera some pledges on tax (income tax and NI) and give some indication of tax raising measures (school VAT and non doms). Doesn't really matter at that point whether the sums add up.
It was a smart move from the Tories. Might save a few votes and gave Sunak a bit of the initiative.
Doubt it changes too much overall, but the red team needed to be better prepared for stuff like this as Starmer isn't great at thinking on his feet.
There are 2 more of these head to head debates (BBC and Sky) so let's see how they turn out
However, my opinion is that Sunak will have pleased his own side, and Starmer seemed at times unable to respond, but overall I do not expect a great poll bounce and Starmer will still be PM on the 5th July
I think that's a fair summary.
I was wondering how the timing of manifesto launches impacts this. The next head to head is 12 June, Labour need to have launched their manifesto by then and had the IFS costed it imo.
Women are not just the walk-on parts and support humans in the drama of men’s lives. You don’t get to just decide that ‘womanhood’ (whatever the hell that means) is a country you can give away to male people to reward them at the end of their heroic quests. Women are whole human people with our own needs and interests, and in order to protect our own needs and interests we need to have our own definition in law. The fact that we are still having to explain why we have a legitimate political interest in our own legal definition, that you don’t just get to give it away to other ‘more important’ people because they want it, and that we have every right to defend our own political interests without being called mean witches, is, I will always maintain, one of the greatest demonstrations of sexism I have ever witnessed in my life.
I mean, seriously. With everything that women have to put up with, the idea that a legal definition of womanhood is in any way the 'greatest demonstration of sexism' seems a rather silly thing to say.
In which case, I shall tell you to fuck off. And when you have fucked off, fuck off some more.
Charming!
Did you read Cyclefree’s thread, or should she fuck off too?
What is your experience of sexism against women that puts you in a position to explain to a women that her views are “silly”?
This is a site where we discuss politics. You posted something I disagreed with, and I posted a response.
You did not argue with my response; and instead just said 'mansplaining', which I don't think I was.
It does, however, sound as though you are trying to silence any pro-trans voice. Since the majority of them on here are male, you can just shout 'mansplaining!' at them.
You also put 'silly woman' in quotes, which I did not say. I said it was a 'rather silly thing to say'. There's a rather large difference between saying someone said something silly, and calling them a 'silly woman'.
You therefore misquoted and misrepresented me.
You either misunderstood or misinterpreted the original post which was about left wing men’s reaction to women’s request to have the current ambiguity in the Equality Act clarified - dismissing it as trivial compared to other issues women face. Which was the point of the original post. I would recommend Cyclefree’s thread when you have a moment - as you point out there are few women on this group - ever wondered why?
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Private care isn't about emergencies though. Emergency care is pretty much only via the NHS, which is why it matters to us all. A multimillionaire acquaintance of mine found this out when his mum fractured her hip. There is no alternative to the local Emergency Dept in that situation (Bangor in that case).
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
Private healthcare is not without risk. After a close family member picked up a life threatening infection at a luxurious private hospital, which then had to be fixed by the NHS, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to reject the allure of quick fixes in the private sector and believe the NHS option is best.
That is a sad overnight straw clutching effort considering todays frontpages and the media narrative..
The media narrative written before the debate? That media narrative? The media narrative only in Tory newspapers speaking to the remaining Tory voters?
How is one poll saying Sunak won definitive and narrative-creating and another poll saying Starmer won "sad" and "straw-clutching?
A poll is a poll is a poll.
BTW - WELCOME BACK! Genuinely, great to see you back posting!
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Private care isn't about emergencies though. Emergency care is pretty much only via the NHS, which is why it matters to us all. A multimillionaire acquaintance of mine found this out when his mum fractured her hip. There is no alternative to the local Emergency Dept in that situation (Bangor in that case).
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
Private healthcare is not without risk. After a close family member picked up a life threatening infection at a luxurious private hospital, which then had to be fixed by the NHS, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to reject the allure of quick fixes in the private sector and believe the NHS option is best.
Because of course the NHS never has problems with its care. :
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Private care isn't about emergencies though. Emergency care is pretty much only via the NHS, which is why it matters to us all. A multimillionaire acquaintance of mine found this out when his mum fractured her hip. There is no alternative to the local Emergency Dept in that situation (Bangor in that case).
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
And emergency care is great once you are past the initial triage / queue in A&E as I found out last week and I suspect TSE discovered yesterday.
In fact the only problem we've encountered is a lack of district nurses which means we are currently visiting the hospital daily for wound dressing because district nurses are too busy and Clinical Decisions don't get many referrals from GPs until late morning so there is capacity between 9-10 to do some quick followups.
One of the questions facing the next government is going to be what the cheap wins are- the things that are unglamorous (not new hospitals), fairly cheap, but ungum the sticking points in the system. Because there clearly are some.
And on tax bombshellgate... one of the tactics Starmer used with the Corbynites was giving them just enough rope to hang themselves. Not always pretty, and it doesn't always work. But one of the marks of a good chess player is that, if they lose a pawn by a blunder, they manage to get compensation for that.
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Private care isn't about emergencies though. Emergency care is pretty much only via the NHS, which is why it matters to us all. A multimillionaire acquaintance of mine found this out when his mum fractured her hip. There is no alternative to the local Emergency Dept in that situation (Bangor in that case).
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
Private healthcare is not without risk. After a close family member picked up a life threatening infection at a luxurious private hospital, which then had to be fixed by the NHS, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to reject the allure of quick fixes in the private sector and believe the NHS option is best.
Because of course the NHS never has problems with its care. :
Sure, but the point is that it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that private medicine is not the answer, nor the best option.
The proportion of losses caused by drone strikes is just incredible. No army from any country is going to be able to go into the field without both fleets of offensive drones and some form of protection from them. Our current army is no longer really fit for purpose.
Last night Sunak repeated his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence and Starmer refused, again, to match it. In the short term, as we catch up with the evolution of warfare in Ukraine, the question has to be whether 2.5% is enough.
Labour made a commitment to 2.5% for Defence on April 12, in advance of the Tories. I think it very likely that we will spend the money poorly, without really thinking through what is needed for modern war.
Defence procurement has been a mess for decades now. Hopefully a realisation of what a modern defensive war actually looks like, will start to drive future decision-making.
A good starting point would be for everyone in NATO to agree to streamline common procurement, and that most of the increased budgets be spent on a limited number of specific areas such as small drones and artillery ammunition. Each country needs to stop re-inventing the wheel for its own specific requirements, and to please its own vested interests.
The current problem isn’t the state of technology, it’s the sheer numbers of equipment required. Having 50 brand new next-gen main battle tanks, means little when you lose half a dozen per day. Let’s build 500 of the last-gen version instead, and half a million rounds of ammo for them.
A significant issue is that warfare can change very rapidly. For nearly twenty years we were fighting insurgencies in two countries, so we pivoted our military more to fight that. Whereas now we're back to a conventional-war-in-Europe style situation - one we're even more unsuited for because of the last couple of decades of insurgency fighting.
Even an economy the size of the US's finds it hard to cover all possible scenarios. Should they concentrate on forces at sea to counter China over Taiwan, or land forces to counter Russia?
It's always the question: which threat(s) should we concentrate on? And the threats are not always visible, except with hindsight after the event.
Then there's the sad old fact that technology is costly to develop, buy, run and maintain, and modern weapons systems are massively complex. And might be destroyed by a new weapon (e.g. drones) that cost a hundredth or thousandth the cost.
I'm unsure what the answer is: more flexibility perhaps, and an improved domestic infrastructure. But I cannot conceive of a way we can match all the potential threats there are.
The answer is that the defence industry needs to learn the lesson of the space industry. Making everything slower and more expensive, then saying “military equipment inflation” and shrugging isn’t going to cut it anymore
One of Sunak's better moments was the way he dealt with the gotcha question on private medical treatment with a straightforward "yes". Starmer's answer sounded like it belonged to another era and will be a hostage to fortune.
I am still struggling with why Starmer would even dream of saying no to a question that most people like Sunak would not have even hesitated to say yes too, and I think there will be some cut through with that bizarre answer with those that were watching the debate.
The correct answer for someone responsible for providing healthcare to the population is "if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me." Starmer gave the correct answer; Sunak gave the incorrect answer.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
Good morning
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Private care isn't about emergencies though. Emergency care is pretty much only via the NHS, which is why it matters to us all. A multimillionaire acquaintance of mine found this out when his mum fractured her hip. There is no alternative to the local Emergency Dept in that situation (Bangor in that case).
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
And emergency care is great once you are past the initial triage / queue in A&E as I found out last week and I suspect TSE discovered yesterday.
In fact the only problem we've encountered is a lack of district nurses which means we are currently visiting the hospital daily for wound dressing because district nurses are too busy and Clinical Decisions don't get many referrals from GPs until late morning so there is capacity between 9-10 to do some quick followups.
As you know I have had considerable experience of our Wales NHS over the last 8 months, including a life saving pacemaker operation, but concerns have been expressed that I was left in A & E for 13 hours, following a direct emergency admission via our GP practice, before seeing a doctor who immediately admitted me and I had an urgent ultrasound scan and treatment began
Indeed as I am currently under a haematologist, cardiologist and a vascular surgeon my interactions now are virtually entirely with the hospital including blood tests and monitoring
I do not think any political party has the answer for the NHS and without substantial tax rises and investment in more staff and equipment, together with solving the social care issue which is intrinsic to the solution, nothing will change and probably things will worsen
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
This probably explains the Labour line this morning, which is that Richi is a liar just like BoZo, the number is a lie, the story about how it was produced is a lie.
The presentation itself is also a lie it's not £2000 a year it's £2000 during the next 4 years...
The more Labour bang on about their tax bombshell the more they look shifty and drum it in to the electorates mind.
Watched the debate last night. Rishi wiped the floor with SKS. Who would have thought a Chief Prosecutor could be a poor debater with such a whiny voice. What more, he let Rishi get away with bombshell comments such as "pensioner`s tax" and "If you think Labour are getting in, you better start saving!". SKS has to do better the next time around or there`s going to be some consequences.
Starmer was dire. Sunak was awful. For all of the "Sunak got his points across" we also have people thinking he shouted over people and tried to pretend he wasn't the PM.
Most people didn't watch the debate. Most people will see clips of the debate. What they see and think will depend on what clips they are served.
I expect the Starmer prep team will be seriously annoyed with him. The Sunak team will be delighted. But does "actually you are paying less taxes actually / actually migration is dropping actually / actually waiting lists are down actually" patronising lies actually work? It assumes people are too stupid to notice reality in front of their faces. And the polls rather demonstrate they have noticed...
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“Signed off by the Treasury perm sec” apparently - so the civil service are supporting the Tory campaign.
Starmer looked timid and should have bullied Sunak a bit. He'll have to do better next time.
scanners. They can't do everything the existing very expensive ones which use superconducting magnets, but could substitute for them in a large number of cases.
MRI Sheds Its Shielding and Superconducting Magnets
A cheaper, smaller scanner uses AI to match other MRIs' image quality
https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/mri-2668213587
War produces oddities. Last night I discovered a very high class supermarket next to my hotel which offers jamon iberica de bellota shaved newly from the bone (and a superb variety of cheeses, charcuterie, amazing fresh fruit, fine wines). I can't work out if Odessa still has a concentration of rich people, somehow, or this is luxury demanded by returning soldiers (can't blame them)
And at night Odessa is rhapsodically quiet. Curfew kicks in around 11pm, much of the portable generated electricity is switched off. There are no cars, no engines, nothing, it is quieter than Venice, the street-trees whisper under the stars. And you can hear birdsong half a mile away, as the rosy Odessan dawn arrives, the slant light shining on the pale green Italianate terraces. Peculiar yet blissful
The last thing Labour want to do for the next four weeks is to spend that time earnestly explaining that tax rises will only be £1000, or £200, or whatever other figure that people won't trust, but will just take the message that Labour will put up taxes.
They briefly have their mojo back. Labour needs to find a similar £ accusation that the Tories struggle to rebut.
And in any event much of our political debate over the last four decades has been ridiculous.
It's almost completely ignored, for example, the structural problems set up by Thatcher's period in government (and perpetuated under Blair/Brown).
Average age 23. I guess all the middle aged and old people have fled? Or they don't come out. There are lots of beautiful young women (of course, it is Ukraine), but a large number of young men. I think these must be Ukrainian soldiers, and they come here for R n R
Of course, nine times out of 10 it turns out there’s no incoming missile close to you…
Otherwise I’m glad to see that Keir Starmer’s experience as DPP with his skills as a forensic prosecutor smashed Rishi in the debates last night.
Managing to keep Rishi down to a measly 51% in the snap poll whilst being miles ahead in party and personal polling is something special.
An effective counter from Labour might be to simply use OBR figures to show how much the Tories have already increased taxes.
The issue I suppose is whether it's better to be believable than correct. As this is a political debate I'm not sure it is better.
"Not a very good morning in Odesa. It started with explosions and a missile attack. Tired and sleepy, but definitely unbroken. There's no power, and the connection is very poor. And today, I have a hospital visit...:"
https://x.com/antoninaodessa/status/1797937979379400904
In which case, I shall tell you to fuck off. And when you have fucked off, fuck off some more.
Voter clusters across UK
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/05/six-voter-tribes-general-election-2024-middle-britons/
A good starting point would be for everyone in NATO to agree to streamline common procurement, and that most of the increased budgets be spent on a limited number of specific areas such as small drones and artillery ammunition. Each country needs to stop re-inventing the wheel for its own specific requirements, and to please its own vested interests.
The current problem isn’t the state of technology, it’s the sheer numbers of equipment required. Having 50 brand new next-gen main battle tanks, means little when you lose half a dozen per day. Let’s build 500 of the last-gen version instead, and half a million rounds of ammo for them.
https://x.com/emmanuelmacron/status/1798032906784501943?s=61
Which is one of the structural problems I referred to earlier.
That will be a problem for us in Leon's AI age, too.
I imagine that Labour will have factored in the Tory press deeming the debate a Sunak triumph.
Did you read Cyclefree’s thread, or should she fuck off too?
What is your experience of sexism against women that puts you in a position to explain to a women that her views are “silly”?
EXCLUSIVE
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
He said he had reminded ministers of this
https://x.com/hzeffman/status/1798252445321343456
This probably explains the Labour line this morning, which is that Richi is a liar just like BoZo, the number is a lie, the story about how it was produced is a lie.
And it's those Left Behind Patriots that it seems that Rishi was targetting which is now going to be very difficult with Nigel back campaigning.
If you get promoted to be in charge of thousands of people and can't manage (effectively) your employees to do what you want, that is on you. If you're the Prime Minister and can't get the Civil Service to carry out your policies, you're just not very good at the job.
Swanning around and saying "lah de dah, we will do X Y and Z and here's a bill to enact it" is the easy bit. Any middle manager can push out a policy saying "from henceforth we shall only use yellow paper and we will address all customers as Thou/Thine", email it round the office and pin it up on the coffee room noticeboard. Making it happen is the hard part.
Truss was demonstrably shit at this. Sunak isn't much better. Thatcher and Blair, evidently, managed it pretty well.
(Not just a central Government thing, of course. Our local County Council suffers from exactly the same malaise. No conspiracy here either, just a failure by the cabinet post-holders to manage their departments.)
I simply do not believe Starmer would not put his family first in the circumstances of a medical emergency and his answer was simply political and dishonest
Even an economy the size of the US's finds it hard to cover all possible scenarios. Should they concentrate on forces at sea to counter China over Taiwan, or land forces to counter Russia?
It's always the question: which threat(s) should we concentrate on? And the threats are not always visible, except with hindsight after the event.
Then there's the sad old fact that technology is costly to develop, buy, run and maintain, and modern weapons systems are massively complex. And might be destroyed by a new weapon (e.g. drones) that cost a hundredth or thousandth the cost.
I'm unsure what the answer is: more flexibility perhaps, and an improved domestic infrastructure. But I cannot conceive of a way we can match all the potential threats there are.
A bit like covid though, that requires domestic manufacturing capacity, to not be subject to international whims.
EXCLUSIVE
The chief Treasury civil servant wrote to Labour two days ago saying that the £38 billion/£2,000 tax attack “should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service”
He said he had reminded ministers of this
https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1798252445321343456
They’ve obviously wargamed their response to Sunak’s £2000 zinger to be ‘Tory lies’ and ‘absolute garbage’ which while probably accurate gives a teeny sense of them being rattled.
. Starmer gave the wrong answer and Sunak gave the right answer, especially when you consider that they can both afford to step with private health care...
The more Labour bang on about their tax bombshell the more they look shifty and drum it in to the electorates mind.
when we left power in 2010 there was no need.
Now I hate the idea but due to Tory spending cuts and the massively increased waiting lists for many people it's unavoidable.
We will do everything we can to return things back yo how they were before the Tories came into power.
However that isn't a short enough soundbite nowadays.
Also it was a Yes No question so you can't really use 3 sentences instead of 1 word.
If it was a requirement that all elected politicians could only use the NHS and State Schools then I suspect that this would concentrate their minds on improving things for the rest of us quite noticeably!
You did not argue with my response; and instead just said 'mansplaining', which I don't think I was.
It does, however, sound as though you are trying to silence any pro-trans voice. Since the majority of them on here are male, you can just shout 'mansplaining!' at them.
You also put 'silly woman' in quotes, which I did not say. I said it was a 'rather silly thing to say'. There's a rather large difference between saying someone said something silly, and calling them a 'silly woman'.
You therefore misquoted and misrepresented me.
The problem I think Labour has in the debates is that SKS is a lawyer who doesn't want to say anything that is a mistake - hence he doesn't respond to surprises..
It was a smart move from the Tories. Might save a few votes and gave Sunak a bit of the initiative.
Doubt it changes too much overall, but the red team needed to be better prepared for stuff like this as Starmer isn't great at thinking on his feet.
Now corrected to: "Top civil servant's letter casts doubt on Tory tax claim"
In fact the only problem we've encountered is a lack of district nurses which means we are currently visiting the hospital daily for wound dressing because district nurses are too busy and Clinical Decisions don't get many referrals from GPs until late morning so there is capacity between 9-10 to do some quick followups.
Starmer's U turn flip flops make this worse as it damages credibility on any rebuttal.
NEW:
@JLPartnersPolls
shows win for Starmer last night - but Sunak geeing up the base....
PM's "aggression" paid off however with the 2019 coalition.. as worm shows National Service, tax and immigration winning back wobbly blues...
However, my opinion is that Sunak will have pleased his own side, and Starmer seemed at times unable to respond, but overall I do not expect a great poll bounce and Starmer will still be PM on the 5th July
However Mrs B who is a wibbly wobbly cant make up her mind type ( and votes across the spectrum ) was asking questions about what this will mean for her pension. So there was a bit of chiming going on.
On the other hand rich Labourites like yourself are no more in tune with "most people" than Starmer so the jury is still out on this one.
And on tax bombshellgate... one of the tactics Starmer used with the Corbynites was giving them just enough rope to hang themselves. Not always pretty, and it doesn't always work. But one of the marks of a good chess player is that, if they lose a pawn by a blunder, they manage to get compensation for that.
I was wondering how the timing of manifesto launches impacts this. The next head to head is 12 June, Labour need to have launched their manifesto by then and had the IFS costed it imo.
How is one poll saying Sunak won definitive and narrative-creating and another poll saying Starmer won "sad" and "straw-clutching?
A poll is a poll is a poll.
BTW - WELCOME BACK! Genuinely, great to see you back posting!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeune_École
The answer is that the defence industry needs to learn the lesson of the space industry. Making everything slower and more expensive, then saying “military equipment inflation” and shrugging isn’t going to cut it anymore
Indeed as I am currently under a haematologist, cardiologist and a vascular surgeon my interactions now are virtually entirely with the hospital including blood tests and monitoring
I do not think any political party has the answer for the NHS and without substantial tax rises and investment in more staff and equipment, together with solving the social care issue which is intrinsic to the solution, nothing will change and probably things will worsen
Most people didn't watch the debate. Most people will see clips of the debate. What they see and think will depend on what clips they are served.
I expect the Starmer prep team will be seriously annoyed with him. The Sunak team will be delighted. But does "actually you are paying less taxes actually / actually migration is dropping actually / actually waiting lists are down actually" patronising lies actually work? It assumes people are too stupid to notice reality in front of their faces. And the polls rather demonstrate they have noticed...