Rachel Wearmouth @REWearmouth · 5m It’s completely unfathomable as to why any British Prime Minister would skip the 80th anniversary of D Day. It’s the job.
If a Labour Prime Minister had done such a thing, they would be shamed for the rest of their political career.
He DID NOT skip the 80th anniversary of D Day, he was there yesterday at Southsea and today in Normandy (which was primarily for heads of state and Rishi is not the King).
The same would apply to a Labour PM. Every other party leader is doing one of these ITV interviews, the main events in Normandy were over when Sunak recorded it. This story is utter rubbish and barrel scraping from Labour and Farage exploiting D Day for their party political ends.
Fortunately none of the mainstream media have it in their headlines and beyond the Westminster bubble nobody is interested
William spoke to President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the event. Mr Sunak did not attend the Omaha Beach ceremony, but UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Mr Starmer were both present.
Rachel Wearmouth @REWearmouth · 5m It’s completely unfathomable as to why any British Prime Minister would skip the 80th anniversary of D Day. It’s the job.
If a Labour Prime Minister had done such a thing, they would be shamed for the rest of their political career.
He DID NOT skip the 80th anniversary of D Day, he was there yesterday at Southsea and today in Normandy (which was primarily for heads of state and Rishi is not the King).
The same would apply to a Labour PM. Every other party leader is doing one of these ITV interviews, the main events in Normandy were over when Sunak recorded it. This story is utter rubbish and barrel scraping from Labour and Farage exploiting D Day for their party political ends.
Fortunately none of the mainstream media have it in their headlines and beyond the Westminster bubble nobody is interested
William spoke to President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the event. Mr Sunak did not attend the Omaha Beach ceremony, but UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Mr Starmer were both present.
He is going to need an excuse better than an XL Bully eat my homework.
I do not recall British soldiers at Omaha, it was a beach where US troops led the landings.
Sunak is also not the head of state or next head of state. Later in the day, 'Prince William joined heads of state at Omaha Beach'
The Canadians weren't at Omaha Beach either but Trudeau was there.
I am sure it will be revealed shortly was Sunak originally invited / accepted. If he was on the guest list along with Cameron and Starmer and didn't attend he is in big trouble.
Trudeau was not at the British Normandy Memorial service by Gold beach where British troops landed, Sunak was
Rachel Wearmouth @REWearmouth · 5m It’s completely unfathomable as to why any British Prime Minister would skip the 80th anniversary of D Day. It’s the job.
If a Labour Prime Minister had done such a thing, they would be shamed for the rest of their political career.
He DID NOT skip the 80th anniversary of D Day, he was there yesterday at Southsea and today in Normandy (which was primarily for heads of state and Rishi is not the King).
The same would apply to a Labour PM. Every other party leader is doing one of these ITV interviews, the main events in Normandy were over when Sunak recorded it. This story is utter rubbish and barrel scraping from Labour and Farage exploiting D Day for their party political ends.
Fortunately none of the mainstream media have it in their headlines and beyond the Westminster bubble nobody is interested
William spoke to President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the event. Mr Sunak did not attend the Omaha Beach ceremony, but UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Mr Starmer were both present.
He is going to need an excuse better than an XL Bully eat my homework.
I do not recall British soldiers at Omaha, it was a beach where US troops led the landings.
Sunak is also not the head of state or next head of state. Later in the day, 'Prince William joined heads of state at Omaha Beach'
The Canadians weren't at Omaha Beach either but Trudeau was there.
I am sure it will be revealed shortly was Sunak originally invited / accepted. If he was on the guest list along with Cameron and Starmer and didn't attend he is in big trouble.
It looks like it was only briefed in the morning that he wouldn't attend:
"Sunak to Skip High-Profile D-Day Event with Biden, Macron"
That's actually very interesting. Despite the 1983 Conservatives achieving 42.4% of the vote and the SDP/Liberal alliance getting 25.4% of the vote, Labour, even on 27.6% of the vote, still got over 200 seats!
I don't know if it will still happen in the present day, with SNP even in its cups predicted to get over 20 seats? But it warns against complacency
I've been obsessed with the 1983 election for years, so it's surprising for me to find someone on PB who isn't familiar with it, but that probably says more about me than anyone else!
Interesting how there was such as small gap in votes between Labour and Alliance, but Labour winning nearly 10 times as many seats.
A few years ago someone sent me a VHS video tape they'd recorded of ITN's election night show for that year, and I put it on YouTube. Doesn't start at the beginning regrettably.
The crazy things in Labours longest suicide note in history manifesto was withdraw for Europe, higher taxes for the rich, abolish the House of Lords, and nationalise a couple of companies doing ship building and plane building.
Rachel Wearmouth @REWearmouth · 5m It’s completely unfathomable as to why any British Prime Minister would skip the 80th anniversary of D Day. It’s the job.
If a Labour Prime Minister had done such a thing, they would be shamed for the rest of their political career.
He DID NOT skip the 80th anniversary of D Day, he was there yesterday at Southsea and today in Normandy (which was primarily for heads of state and Rishi is not the King).
The same would apply to a Labour PM. Every other party leader is doing one of these ITV interviews, the main events in Normandy were over when Sunak recorded it. This story is utter rubbish and barrel scraping from Labour and Farage exploiting D Day for their party political ends.
Fortunately none of the mainstream media have it in their headlines and beyond the Westminster bubble nobody is interested
William spoke to President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the event. Mr Sunak did not attend the Omaha Beach ceremony, but UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Mr Starmer were both present.
He is going to need an excuse better than an XL Bully eat my homework.
I do not recall British soldiers at Omaha, it was a beach where US troops led the landings.
Sunak is also not the head of state or next head of state. Later in the day, 'Prince William joined heads of state at Omaha Beach'
The Canadians weren't at Omaha Beach either but Trudeau was there.
I am sure it will be revealed shortly was Sunak originally invited / accepted. If he was on the guest list along with Cameron and Starmer and didn't attend he is in big trouble.
It looks like it was only briefed in the morning that he wouldn't attend:
"Sunak to Skip High-Profile D-Day Event with Biden, Macron"
Rachel Wearmouth @REWearmouth · 5m It’s completely unfathomable as to why any British Prime Minister would skip the 80th anniversary of D Day. It’s the job.
If a Labour Prime Minister had done such a thing, they would be shamed for the rest of their political career.
He DID NOT skip the 80th anniversary of D Day, he was there yesterday at Southsea and today in Normandy (which was primarily for heads of state and Rishi is not the King).
The same would apply to a Labour PM. Every other party leader is doing one of these ITV interviews, the main events in Normandy were over when Sunak recorded it. This story is utter rubbish and barrel scraping from Labour and Farage exploiting D Day for their party political ends.
Fortunately none of the mainstream media have it in their headlines and beyond the Westminster bubble nobody is interested
William spoke to President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the event. Mr Sunak did not attend the Omaha Beach ceremony, but UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Mr Starmer were both present.
He is going to need an excuse better than an XL Bully eat my homework.
I do not recall British soldiers at Omaha, it was a beach where US troops led the landings.
Sunak is also not the head of state or next head of state. Later in the day, 'Prince William joined heads of state at Omaha Beach'
The Canadians weren't at Omaha Beach either but Trudeau was there.
I am sure it will be revealed shortly was Sunak originally invited / accepted. If he was on the guest list along with Cameron and Starmer and didn't attend he is in big trouble.
It looks like it was only briefed in the morning that he wouldn't attend:
"Sunak to Skip High-Profile D-Day Event with Biden, Macron"
Rachel Wearmouth @REWearmouth · 5m It’s completely unfathomable as to why any British Prime Minister would skip the 80th anniversary of D Day. It’s the job.
If a Labour Prime Minister had done such a thing, they would be shamed for the rest of their political career.
He DID NOT skip the 80th anniversary of D Day, he was there yesterday at Southsea and today in Normandy (which was primarily for heads of state and Rishi is not the King).
The same would apply to a Labour PM. Every other party leader is doing one of these ITV interviews, the main events in Normandy were over when Sunak recorded it. This story is utter rubbish and barrel scraping from Labour and Farage exploiting D Day for their party political ends.
Fortunately none of the mainstream media have it in their headlines and beyond the Westminster bubble nobody is interested
William spoke to President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the event. Mr Sunak did not attend the Omaha Beach ceremony, but UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Mr Starmer were both present.
He is going to need an excuse better than an XL Bully eat my homework.
I do not recall British soldiers at Omaha, it was a beach where US troops led the landings.
Sunak is also not the head of state or next head of state. Later in the day, 'Prince William joined heads of state at Omaha Beach'
The Canadians weren't at Omaha Beach either but Trudeau was there.
I am sure it will be revealed shortly was Sunak originally invited / accepted. If he was on the guest list along with Cameron and Starmer and didn't attend he is in big trouble.
It looks like it was only briefed in the morning that he wouldn't attend:
"Sunak to Skip High-Profile D-Day Event with Biden, Macron"
Seems like proof that he was originally invited to what Bloomberg calls a "meeting of international leaders".
It was not the G7 summit and most of those in attendance were heads of state which Sunak isn't
If he was originally invited, passed on it at the last minute, and it was because he did an ITV interview, he is in the deep shit. All the other major ally PMs / Presidents were there (except Putin), it doesn't look good. You can try and spin it all you like that its ok because the Royal were there instead, but if he was on the invite list and did a no show on the day, Farage and Starmer are going to have him for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Rachel Wearmouth @REWearmouth · 5m It’s completely unfathomable as to why any British Prime Minister would skip the 80th anniversary of D Day. It’s the job.
If a Labour Prime Minister had done such a thing, they would be shamed for the rest of their political career.
He DID NOT skip the 80th anniversary of D Day, he was there yesterday at Southsea and today in Normandy (which was primarily for heads of state and Rishi is not the King).
The same would apply to a Labour PM. Every other party leader is doing one of these ITV interviews, the main events in Normandy were over when Sunak recorded it. This story is utter rubbish and barrel scraping from Labour and Farage exploiting D Day for their party political ends.
Fortunately none of the mainstream media have it in their headlines and beyond the Westminster bubble nobody is interested
William spoke to President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the event. Mr Sunak did not attend the Omaha Beach ceremony, but UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Mr Starmer were both present.
He is going to need an excuse better than an XL Bully eat my homework.
I do not recall British soldiers at Omaha, it was a beach where US troops led the landings.
Sunak is also not the head of state or next head of state. Later in the day, 'Prince William joined heads of state at Omaha Beach'
The Canadians weren't at Omaha Beach either but Trudeau was there.
I am sure it will be revealed shortly was Sunak originally invited / accepted. If he was on the guest list along with Cameron and Starmer and didn't attend he is in big trouble.
It looks like it was only briefed in the morning that he wouldn't attend:
"Sunak to Skip High-Profile D-Day Event with Biden, Macron"
Seems like proof that he was originally invited to what Bloomberg calls a "meeting of international leaders".
It was not the G7 summit and most of those in attendance were heads of state which Sunak isn't
If he was originally invited, passed on it at the last minute, and it was because he did an ITV interview, he is in the deep shit.
No, he is in deep shit with the likes of you and Labour and Farage who want to make pathetic political points to exploit the D Day commemorations to boost your party. It is absolutely disgraceful.
He attended the British beach landing ceremonies, which is all he as UK head of government needed to attend. He is NOT US head of state, that is Biden, he is NOT Canadian head of state, that is the King with the Prince of Wales assisting him
Rachel Wearmouth @REWearmouth · 5m It’s completely unfathomable as to why any British Prime Minister would skip the 80th anniversary of D Day. It’s the job.
If a Labour Prime Minister had done such a thing, they would be shamed for the rest of their political career.
He DID NOT skip the 80th anniversary of D Day, he was there yesterday at Southsea and today in Normandy (which was primarily for heads of state and Rishi is not the King).
The same would apply to a Labour PM. Every other party leader is doing one of these ITV interviews, the main events in Normandy were over when Sunak recorded it. This story is utter rubbish and barrel scraping from Labour and Farage exploiting D Day for their party political ends.
Fortunately none of the mainstream media have it in their headlines and beyond the Westminster bubble nobody is interested
William spoke to President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the event. Mr Sunak did not attend the Omaha Beach ceremony, but UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Mr Starmer were both present.
He is going to need an excuse better than an XL Bully eat my homework.
I do not recall British soldiers at Omaha, it was a beach where US troops led the landings.
Sunak is also not the head of state or next head of state. Later in the day, 'Prince William joined heads of state at Omaha Beach'
The Canadians weren't at Omaha Beach either but Trudeau was there.
I am sure it will be revealed shortly was Sunak originally invited / accepted. If he was on the guest list along with Cameron and Starmer and didn't attend he is in big trouble.
It looks like it was only briefed in the morning that he wouldn't attend:
"Sunak to Skip High-Profile D-Day Event with Biden, Macron"
Seems like proof that he was originally invited to what Bloomberg calls a "meeting of international leaders".
It was not the G7 summit and most of those in attendance were heads of state which Sunak isn't
If he was originally invited, passed on it at the last minute, and it was because he did an ITV interview, he is in the deep shit.
No, he is in deep shit with the likes of you and Labour and Farage who want to make pathetic political points to exploit the D Day commemorations to boost your party. It is absolutely disgraceful.
He attended the British beach landing ceremonies, which is all he as UK head of government needed to attend. He is NOT US head of state, that is Biden, he is NOT Canadian head of state, that is the King with the Prince of Wales assisting him
My party? Who is "my party"? Today alone I have pointed out flaws in the all major parties.
You are so hyper-partisan you struggle to see those that are not and just calling it as they see it.
Designed by sculptor Charles Bergen, the five waymarkers – sculptural signposts located lower down the hillside from the memorial – point to the five D-Day landing beaches. They feature scenes representing different aspects of the landings. . . .
Omaha Beach
The main force landing on Omaha Beach was American, but British forces were in support.
In the centre of the waymarker, an LCA (‘Landing Craft, Assault’) of the Royal Navy delivers American infantry to the beach. A significant proportion of the troops landing here on D-Day were put ashore by British landing craft. . .
On the edge of the waymarker, men of the US Rangers climb the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, several miles further west . . . Two B-26 medium bombers fly overhead: this type was operated by both American and British air forces. . . . Minesweepers led the Allied fleet across the English Channel. Many of the minesweepers at this beach were British or Canadian.
Next to the minesweepers are a pair of ships of the Merchant Navy. These civilian-manned ships arrived off Normandy from D-Day onwards, and played an essential role in bringing additional troops and supplies to France.
Designed by sculptor Charles Bergen, the five waymarkers – sculptural signposts located lower down the hillside from the memorial – point to the five D-Day landing beaches. They feature scenes representing different aspects of the landings. . . .
Omaha Beach
The main force landing on Omaha Beach was American, but British forces were in support.
In the centre of the waymarker, an LCA (‘Landing Craft, Assault’) of the Royal Navy delivers American infantry to the beach. A significant proportion of the troops landing here on D-Day were put ashore by British landing craft. . .
On the edge of the waymarker, men of the US Rangers climb the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, several miles further west . . . Two B-26 medium bombers fly overhead: this type was operated by both American and British air forces. . . . Minesweepers led the Allied fleet across the English Channel. Many of the minesweepers at this beach were British or Canadian.
Next to the minesweepers are a pair of ships of the Merchant Navy. These civilian-manned ships arrived off Normandy from D-Day onwards, and played an essential role in bringing additional troops and supplies to France.
Rachel Wearmouth @REWearmouth · 5m It’s completely unfathomable as to why any British Prime Minister would skip the 80th anniversary of D Day. It’s the job.
If a Labour Prime Minister had done such a thing, they would be shamed for the rest of their political career.
He DID NOT skip the 80th anniversary of D Day, he was there yesterday at Southsea and today in Normandy (which was primarily for heads of state and Rishi is not the King).
The same would apply to a Labour PM. Every other party leader is doing one of these ITV interviews, the main events in Normandy were over when Sunak recorded it. This story is utter rubbish and barrel scraping from Labour and Farage exploiting D Day for their party political ends.
Fortunately none of the mainstream media have it in their headlines and beyond the Westminster bubble nobody is interested
William spoke to President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the event. Mr Sunak did not attend the Omaha Beach ceremony, but UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Mr Starmer were both present.
Designed by sculptor Charles Bergen, the five waymarkers – sculptural signposts located lower down the hillside from the memorial – point to the five D-Day landing beaches. They feature scenes representing different aspects of the landings. . . .
Omaha Beach
The main force landing on Omaha Beach was American, but British forces were in support.
In the centre of the waymarker, an LCA (‘Landing Craft, Assault’) of the Royal Navy delivers American infantry to the beach. A significant proportion of the troops landing here on D-Day were put ashore by British landing craft. . .
On the edge of the waymarker, men of the US Rangers climb the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, several miles further west . . . Two B-26 medium bombers fly overhead: this type was operated by both American and British air forces. . . . Minesweepers led the Allied fleet across the English Channel. Many of the minesweepers at this beach were British or Canadian.
Next to the minesweepers are a pair of ships of the Merchant Navy. These civilian-manned ships arrived off Normandy from D-Day onwards, and played an essential role in bringing additional troops and supplies to France.
Gonna have to hold up my hands and say i was wrong. I thought there may be overreaction but now we know it was apparently just to do a pre recorded interview..... that could be done any time. Its astonishing and becoming more so as the clock ticks on tonight. He needs to get his arse in front of the cameras to explain and if there is no explanation, apologise. Profusely.
“ I thought there may be overreaction”
Well it hasn’t made any of the paper front pages or on any of the news web pages. The Guardian and “i” weren’t interested in it. The Star didn’t have biggles flying back across the channel above the troop landers going the other way.
so it might just be a social media over reaction, a PB gasm on drunk tank Thursday, if mainstream media deems it so unimportant.
I think that might be that it looks just as bad as Sunak if they run a big thing on the story and not on D-Day. We will see what later today brings.
Yes, it's a slow burn story for that reason, but it's starting to gain traction:
The Speccy really really don't like Sunak do they. Normally the left and right media roll in behind their team by now with the well they aren't perfect, but look squirrel over there, much worse, much more dangerous.
Squirrels can be dangerous, they are little different to rats.
The Grey invader Squirrel very dangerous for the Red ones. Chewed their nuts so they couldn’t make babies. So i was told.
Gonna have to hold up my hands and say i was wrong. I thought there may be overreaction but now we know it was apparently just to do a pre recorded interview..... that could be done any time. Its astonishing and becoming more so as the clock ticks on tonight. He needs to get his arse in front of the cameras to explain and if there is no explanation, apologise. Profusely.
“ I thought there may be overreaction”
Well it hasn’t made any of the paper front pages or on any of the news web pages. The Guardian and “i” weren’t interested in it. The Star didn’t have biggles flying back across the channel above the troop landers going the other way.
so it might just be a social media over reaction, a PB gasm on drunk tank Thursday, if mainstream media deems it so unimportant.
I think that might be that it looks just as bad as Sunak if they run a big thing on the story and not on D-Day. We will see what later today brings.
Yes, it's a slow burn story for that reason, but it's starting to gain traction:
The Speccy really really don't like Sunak do they. Normally the left and right media roll in behind their team by now with the well they aren't perfect, but look squirrel over there, much worse, much more dangerous.
Squirrels can be dangerous, they are little different to rats.
The Grey invader Squirrel very dangerous for the Red ones. Chewed their nuts so they couldn’t make babies. So i was told.
Squirrels are far more dangerous than rats. They can bite through bone. Just much more intelligent so appear more likeable. One shouldn't go near them.
In addition to France, United Kingdom, United States and Germany, national leader guest list for D-Day anniversary - for all beaches - would logically also include Poland.
As in "Six Armies in Normandy" by John Keegan.
Don't know the (literally) gory details, but am 100% sure there was Poles in the fray on D-Day.
BTW, I knew a guy who was NOT a D-Day veteran, but did land in Normandy shortly after. Serving as a cook for General Patton. He was Jimmy Locke, a Chinese immigrant, whose son Gary became the first Asian American governor on the US outside of Hawaii.
There's also the interesting story of a Korean who was drafted into the Japanese Army labor corps in late 1930s. Just in time to take place in pre-WW2 border fighting against the Soviet Union (which the Soviets won) and get captured, then drafted into the Red Army. When Hitler invaded Russia, he was among the millions of other by the Wehrmacht. Which not unsurprisingly drafted him into it's labor corps, then sent him westward to help build the Atlantic Wall.
Thus he found himself on one of the "American" beaches of Normandy on 6/6/1944, and was soon a POW in US Army custody. Who at first had no clue who he was, as nobody could understand a word he said, and visa versa. Eventually they rounded up a Korean American GI, who translated the guys amazing story of being drafted into three different armies, captured twice and crossing the from the Sea of Japan to the English Channel.
Then they did the obvious: they drafted him into the US Army labor corps.
Hazel Foster (Conservative) 938 Peter Fenton (Liberal Democrat) 929 Mike Lister (Reform UK) 188 Jonathan Chant-Stevens (Labour) 117 Jenny Giel (Green) 34 Paul Moor (Workers Party of Britain) 11
That looks very bad for the Conservatives, 19.2% swing from Con to LD when the Torbay constituency needs a 17.4% swing to fall. The Electoral Calculus MRP still has the Tories holding the seat. Wellswood is also in the top 50 wards for people aged 65 to 84 and top 30 for people aged 85+ with 43% of the population being retired.
Hazel Foster (Conservative) 938 Peter Fenton (Liberal Democrat) 929 Mike Lister (Reform UK) 188 Jonathan Chant-Stevens (Labour) 117 Jenny Giel (Green) 34 Paul Moor (Workers Party of Britain) 11
That looks very bad for the Conservatives, 19.2% swing from Con to LD when the Torbay constituency needs a 17.4% swing to fall. The Electoral Calculus MRP still has the Tories holding the seat. Wellswood is also in the top 50 wards for people aged 65 to 84 and top 30 for people aged 85+ with 43% of the population being retired.
Torbay was LD from 1997 to 2015, if it wasn't for the personal vote Kevin Foster has built up there on current polls it would be odds on as a Tory loss
The 2024 CUP general election "campaign" in its awfulness, reminds me of the post-convention "campaign" of Democratic nominee Mike Dukakis in 1988.
Dukakis was smart, articulate (he hosted a good public-tv show on political issues) and principled politico, who served several successful terms as Governor of Massachusetts. And he ran a savvy, successful campaign for the Dem nomination, coming out of the convention with a sizable polling lead.
Which he managed to piss away in short order, by defending . . . wait for it . . . flag burning as constitutionally-protected free speech. Which it is in America, but WTF?
Dukakis's poll numbers started dropping like a rock. NOT helped when Republicans publicized film of him riding atop a tank wearing a funny helmet. Which of course was nothing to the GOP's "Willy Horton Ad" topped off by answering question - during a POTUS debate with Bush the Elder - what his reaction would be if someone murdered his wife. Which was - pull out a law book to expound on the Constitution.
There's also the interesting story of a Korean who was drafted into the Japanese Army labor corps in late 1930s. Just in time to take place in pre-WW2 border fighting against the Soviet Union (which the Soviets won) and get captured, then drafted into the Red Army. When Hitler invaded Russia, he was among the millions of other by the Wehrmacht. Which not unsurprisingly drafted him into it's labor corps, then sent him westward to help build the Atlantic Wall.
Thus he found himself on one of the "American" beaches of Normandy on 6/6/1944, and was soon a POW in US Army custody. Who at first had no clue who he was, as nobody could understand a word he said, and visa versa. Eventually they rounded up a Korean American GI, who translated the guys amazing story of being drafted into three different armies, captured twice and crossing the from the Sea of Japan to the English Channel.
Then they did the obvious: they drafted him into the US Army labor corps.
I am struggling to really believe many of those anything to do with popularity rather just from name recognition.
Not suire. There is a separate column/question for name recognition.
It's a bit of both, the Positive/Negative/Neutral totals only adds up to the your fame score. This makes sense, you can't have an opinion of someone you haven't heard of. So if you're a marmite figure that everyone has heard of you might have a popularity of 50%. If everyone who has heard of you likes you but that's only 40% of the population, then your popularity would be 40%.
That said, Farage's numbers are remarkably high, his net popularity is -4, much better than Johnson (-26), Cameron (-41), Sunak (-35), Blair (-30), May (-26), Sturgeon (-27), Corbyn (-37), Truss (-50). Only Starmer (-8) comes anywhere near Farage among the top 10 most famous politicians.
Going lower down the fame scale, there are some active politicians in positive figures, Penny Mordaunt is on +8, Andy Burnham is +5, Liz Kendall is +6, Chris Bryant is +8, Rebecca Long-Bailey is +3, Tom Tugendhat is +7, Sian Berry +4, Patrick Harvie +7. At these sorts of levels obscurity is beneficial, their fame is likely limited to people within their own party so your political opponents who would tend to dislike them don't only because they haven't heard of them yet.
Keiran Pedley @keiranpedley · 53m Can’t imagine Penny Mordaunt is thrilled at going on stage vs. Nigel Farage tomorrow night to defend the PM leaving D Day commemorations to do an interview with ITV. Not the ideal setup!
Why does Farage get to fly the flag unchallenged ? He's done as much damage to the country as any Tory. Fuck him and the horse he ride in on.
Mordaunt isn't in a position to say that, of course. But everyone else should.
Gonna have to hold up my hands and say i was wrong. I thought there may be overreaction but now we know it was apparently just to do a pre recorded interview..... that could be done any time. Its astonishing and becoming more so as the clock ticks on tonight. He needs to get his arse in front of the cameras to explain and if there is no explanation, apologise. Profusely.
“ I thought there may be overreaction”
Well it hasn’t made any of the paper front pages or on any of the news web pages. The Guardian and “i” weren’t interested in it. The Star didn’t have biggles flying back across the channel above the troop landers going the other way.
so it might just be a social media over reaction, a PB gasm on drunk tank Thursday, if mainstream media deems it so unimportant.
Nobody is interested in the mainstream media beyond the Labour partisan Mirror because this is an appalling political spin by Labour and Farage to exploit D Day for their own ends (which a few anti Sunak Tories are jumping on the bandwagon of).
Sunak attended the main commemorations today and the commemorations at Southsea yesterday, he even pushed a vet in his wheelchair this morning. The main complaint seems to be he didn't stay to grab poor Zelensky for a shameless photo op like Starmer!!!
While I'm inclined to agree with you, HYUFD, I don't think the conservative press will.
There's also the interesting story of a Korean who was drafted into the Japanese Army labor corps in late 1930s. Just in time to take place in pre-WW2 border fighting against the Soviet Union (which the Soviets won) and get captured, then drafted into the Red Army. When Hitler invaded Russia, he was among the millions of other by the Wehrmacht. Which not unsurprisingly drafted him into it's labor corps, then sent him westward to help build the Atlantic Wall.
Thus he found himself on one of the "American" beaches of Normandy on 6/6/1944, and was soon a POW in US Army custody. Who at first had no clue who he was, as nobody could understand a word he said, and visa versa. Eventually they rounded up a Korean American GI, who translated the guys amazing story of being drafted into three different armies, captured twice and crossing the from the Sea of Japan to the English Channel.
Then they did the obvious: they drafted him into the US Army labor corps.
Fascinating story all the same. Certainly _possible_ it's true
True or not, it's emblematic of the really, really shitty half century most Koreans had, starting with the Japanese occupation, and ending (though not for the poor bastards in the North) with the brutal Korean War and its aftermath.
Farage is scheduled to have a day off campaigning tomorrow, i wonder if he might not put in an appearance......
Does Farage need half a chance to wrap himself in the Union Jack and stick the boot in...its what he lives for.
This would be the same Farage who on a CCF camp at secondary school '... had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shouting Hitler-youth songs?' And he has the audacity to criticise Sunak for allegedly not showing enough respect to those who defeated Hitler! https://www.channel4.com/news/nigel-farage-ukip-letter-school-concerns-racism-fascism
Decent line for Mordaunt to use. One thing she's quite good at is adopting a supercilious tone.
In terms of incredible but plausible war stories, my own Daddy Dearest used to tell one definitely true one from the local Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) chapter in his western Pennsylvania hometown steel town. Which was populated mostly by eastern & southern European immigrants and their children, along with contingents of Southern Blacks and Whites from rural Pennsylvania ("cake-eaters").
An older member of the local VFW circa 1955 had immigrated from Croatia, then part of Austria-Hungary before WW1 and was subsequently drafted into the US Army in 1917 and sent to fight on the Western Front. When returned back to western PA, he got his job back at the local steel mill.
Now he wanted to propose his slightly-younger brother for membership.
"He also fought in a foreign war". "Yeah - for the enemy!"
Which was true, as little brother had also been drafted . . . into the Austro-Hungarian army.
Now nobody there had any problem with either brother, or certainly the long-defunct Dual Monarchy. But the enemy's still the enemy. So what to do?
Solution was to enroll little brother in the VFW Auxillary, ordinarily wives of members but they made an exception just for him. Meaning he didn't have a vote on organization business . . . but he DID have bar privileges. Which was the reason he wanted to join in the first place.
When Americans say, "Thank you for your service" we really mean it.
First data coming in about the likely impact of the Welsh 20mph speed limit in residential areas.
The casualties on 20 and 30mph roads down by 29%. Difficult to split down as so many have changed category between the two. Also worth noting that that does not identify categories of casualty.
It's nice to have some numbers during the Election campaign, though only one quarter's worth.
The number of people injured on 20 and 30mph roads in Wales fell by almost a third in the final quarter of last year, new data published by the Welsh government shows.
The figures show there were 463 casualties on such roads between October and December, down from 681 in the same period a year earlier.
The Welsh Labour government has credited the introduction of default 20mph default speed limits, which took effect last September, but Conservatives said more data was needed. Plaid Cymru, which supported the policy, said the figures were "encouraging".
Labour has since committed to a review of the new law.
If we limited cars to 5mph on all roads, fatalities would drop to near zero. We don’t do that, because we balance the need to move around more quickly, and so we find a balance - in the past set to about 30mph.
The only meaningful figure here would be deaths vs productivity/embuggerance, and there’s no “right” answer.
I agree that reduction to 5mph is a red herring by reductio ad adsurbam. No one is proposing that, and it's really a distraction from the serious argument you suggest - the question is choosing a balance.
Is 20mph is a better balance than 30mph, and where and how extensively should it be used?
I suggest that 30 years of experience with hundreds of 20mph schemes in the UK, and extensive experience abroad, shows that it is a better balance for extensive use in urban environments - such as residential and shopping areas.
On speed of moving around, we need data. I'm sure that will become available.
There are also a mass of subjective factors, such as pleasantness of environment for us all to live in, noise, systematic safety (ie the system we use for H&S applied to the road / street environment) and so on.
I’ve got this weird theory that I get around by north London suburb quicker under the 20mph regime than the old 30mph system. Less reversing required to let another car through bottlenecks. But I can’t prove it, the driving just feels less staccato.
Research from Italy suggests that 18.5mph is optimal in urban areas. Reduces all the stopping and starting, so average speeds increase.
Same logic is why they drop the speed limit to 50mph on Motorways when it's busy.
First data coming in about the likely impact of the Welsh 20mph speed limit in residential areas.
The casualties on 20 and 30mph roads down by 29%. Difficult to split down as so many have changed category between the two. Also worth noting that that does not identify categories of casualty.
It's nice to have some numbers during the Election campaign, though only one quarter's worth.
The number of people injured on 20 and 30mph roads in Wales fell by almost a third in the final quarter of last year, new data published by the Welsh government shows.
The figures show there were 463 casualties on such roads between October and December, down from 681 in the same period a year earlier.
The Welsh Labour government has credited the introduction of default 20mph default speed limits, which took effect last September, but Conservatives said more data was needed. Plaid Cymru, which supported the policy, said the figures were "encouraging".
Labour has since committed to a review of the new law.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. It took about 2 minutes to find that road casualties have been falling continuously from a (very high) peak in 2005 and that the trend over the last 2 years is no different to the overall trend of the last 18 years (accepting a trough in 2020 when far fewer people were driving because of covid.)
I think you need to provide a cite on that TBH. You have data showing that trend for this subset of roads over 20 years?
You can't evaluate a particular intervention related to a particular subset by quoting a general trend; that's introducing noise into the data.
It's the Welsh Government's own statistics for road safety for 2022. It includes trends for the road casualties all the way back to 1979.
Unless of course you don’t trust the Welsh Government's own figures.
Careful - I'm don't know about Welsh stats but in Scotland much of the improvement has come from car occupants. Cars are very good at protecting at people inside in the event of a collision.
So 20mph is great news for people outside cars. And good news for car occupants too, if you consider all the costs and inconvenience of a prang, even if you escape uninjured.
In addition to France, United Kingdom, United States and Germany, national leader guest list for D-Day anniversary - for all beaches - would logically also include Poland.
As in "Six Armies in Normandy" by John Keegan.
Don't know the (literally) gory details, but am 100% sure there was Poles in the fray on D-Day.
BTW, I knew a guy who was NOT a D-Day veteran, but did land in Normandy shortly after. Serving as a cook for General Patton. He was Jimmy Locke, a Chinese immigrant, whose son Gary became the first Asian American governor on the US outside of Hawaii.
There's also the interesting story of a Korean who was drafted into the Japanese Army labor corps in late 1930s. Just in time to take place in pre-WW2 border fighting against the Soviet Union (which the Soviets won) and get captured, then drafted into the Red Army. When Hitler invaded Russia, he was among the millions of other by the Wehrmacht. Which not unsurprisingly drafted him into it's labor corps, then sent him westward to help build the Atlantic Wall.
Thus he found himself on one of the "American" beaches of Normandy on 6/6/1944, and was soon a POW in US Army custody. Who at first had no clue who he was, as nobody could understand a word he said, and visa versa. Eventually they rounded up a Korean American GI, who translated the guys amazing story of being drafted into three different armies, captured twice and crossing the from the Sea of Japan to the English Channel.
Then they did the obvious: they drafted him into the US Army labor corps.
The one I have always found fascinating is the story of Joseph Beyrle - a paratrooper with the 506th PIR 101st Airborne - the same battalion as the Band of Brothers Easy Company. He was captured by the Germans after parachuting into Normandy on D Day. Made a whole series of escape attempts but eventually escaped from Stalag III in January 1945 and made it to the advancing Russian army. Joined a Russian Tank assault regiment and fought with them as they pushed towards Berlin. Was eventually wounded and ended up in a Russian hospital where Marshall Zukhov came across him and got him back to the US embassy in Moscow after whch he was sent back to the US only to discover he was officially dead and had had a very nice funeral.
The photo of him after he was caught by the Gestapo in one of his failed escape attempts is awesome.
Ironically he died aged 81 during a visit back to Camp Toccoa in Georgia where he had done his original parachute training.
Amongst his various medals he received the US Bronze Star, the French Croix de Guerre and the Russian Order of the Red Star.
First data coming in about the likely impact of the Welsh 20mph speed limit in residential areas.
The casualties on 20 and 30mph roads down by 29%. Difficult to split down as so many have changed category between the two. Also worth noting that that does not identify categories of casualty.
It's nice to have some numbers during the Election campaign, though only one quarter's worth.
The number of people injured on 20 and 30mph roads in Wales fell by almost a third in the final quarter of last year, new data published by the Welsh government shows.
The figures show there were 463 casualties on such roads between October and December, down from 681 in the same period a year earlier.
The Welsh Labour government has credited the introduction of default 20mph default speed limits, which took effect last September, but Conservatives said more data was needed. Plaid Cymru, which supported the policy, said the figures were "encouraging".
Labour has since committed to a review of the new law.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. It took about 2 minutes to find that road casualties have been falling continuously from a (very high) peak in 2005 and that the trend over the last 2 years is no different to the overall trend of the last 18 years (accepting a trough in 2020 when far fewer people were driving because of covid.)
I think you need to provide a cite on that TBH. You have data showing that trend for this subset of roads over 20 years?
You can't evaluate a particular intervention related to a particular subset by quoting a general trend; that's introducing noise into the data.
It's the Welsh Government's own statistics for road safety for 2022. It includes trends for the road casualties all the way back to 1979.
Unless of course you don’t trust the Welsh Government's own figures.
Careful - I'm don't know about Welsh stats but in Scotland much of the improvement has come from car occupants. Cars are very good at protecting at people inside in the event of a collision.
So 20mph is great news for people outside cars. And good news for car occupants too, if you consider all the costs and inconvenience of a prang, even if you escape uninjured.
Lies, damned lies and statistics.
In fact, just checking the stats - 20mph's biggest effect in Edinburgh was a reduction in slight injuries for car occupants, falling 1:1 with car on car collisions. Whiplash, I presume.
Designed by sculptor Charles Bergen, the five waymarkers – sculptural signposts located lower down the hillside from the memorial – point to the five D-Day landing beaches. They feature scenes representing different aspects of the landings. . . .
Omaha Beach
The main force landing on Omaha Beach was American, but British forces were in support.
In the centre of the waymarker, an LCA (‘Landing Craft, Assault’) of the Royal Navy delivers American infantry to the beach. A significant proportion of the troops landing here on D-Day were put ashore by British landing craft. . .
On the edge of the waymarker, men of the US Rangers climb the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, several miles further west . . . Two B-26 medium bombers fly overhead: this type was operated by both American and British air forces. . . . Minesweepers led the Allied fleet across the English Channel. Many of the minesweepers at this beach were British or Canadian.
Next to the minesweepers are a pair of ships of the Merchant Navy. These civilian-manned ships arrived off Normandy from D-Day onwards, and played an essential role in bringing additional troops and supplies to France.
"Their story has remained relatively unknown, but they suffered 48 casualties out of a group of 180 or so, and only in 2012 was their heroism recognised by the unveiling of a monument at Vierville-sur-Mer. It is a remarkable and moving story."
The following is family legend; I know some of it to be true, but he was reticent to talk about his experiences.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and had a young family. Despite this, he volunteered to serve - in the Navy, a perhaps odd choice for someone who lived about as far inland as you can get in the UK. He joined the DEMS force. We have a picture of him from the war, on a ship covered in ice, presumably in the North Atlantic (I don't think he did a Murmansk run).
Because there was a shortage of guns and crew; they would have their anti-aircraft guns on one ship outbound, and when they got beyond German air cover, they would be transferred onto a ship coming inbound via something like breeches buoy. The gun going across first. Hence, although he sailed for America on many occasions, he never got there...
He had a very mathematical brain, and after a couple of years he was posted ashore. He ended up working behind Portsmouth, and this is where the D-Day connection comes in. I have zero proof of this, but family legend has it that he was involved with planning the logistics for D-Day, and he wrote up the orders for some of the ship's captains on the day.
To perhaps back this up; he was working there at the time (his family were based in the New Forest). Perhaps more importantly; he did not get to see his family for a while immediately before D-Day, the legend has it for security reasons.
I really wish I'd encouraged him to talk more about his experiences, but he was a fairly religious man, and my impression was the war was not something he wanted to talk about. So we have the DEMS medal, a few photos, and lots of rumours.
First data coming in about the likely impact of the Welsh 20mph speed limit in residential areas.
The casualties on 20 and 30mph roads down by 29%. Difficult to split down as so many have changed category between the two. Also worth noting that that does not identify categories of casualty.
It's nice to have some numbers during the Election campaign, though only one quarter's worth.
The number of people injured on 20 and 30mph roads in Wales fell by almost a third in the final quarter of last year, new data published by the Welsh government shows.
The figures show there were 463 casualties on such roads between October and December, down from 681 in the same period a year earlier.
The Welsh Labour government has credited the introduction of default 20mph default speed limits, which took effect last September, but Conservatives said more data was needed. Plaid Cymru, which supported the policy, said the figures were "encouraging".
Labour has since committed to a review of the new law.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. It took about 2 minutes to find that road casualties have been falling continuously from a (very high) peak in 2005 and that the trend over the last 2 years is no different to the overall trend of the last 18 years (accepting a trough in 2020 when far fewer people were driving because of covid.)
I think you need to provide a cite on that TBH. You have data showing that trend for this subset of roads over 20 years?
You can't evaluate a particular intervention related to a particular subset by quoting a general trend; that's introducing noise into the data.
It's the Welsh Government's own statistics for road safety for 2022. It includes trends for the road casualties all the way back to 1979.
Unless of course you don’t trust the Welsh Government's own figures.
Careful - I'm don't know about Welsh stats but in Scotland much of the improvement has come from car occupants. Cars are very good at protecting at people inside in the event of a collision.
So 20mph is great news for people outside cars. And good news for car occupants too, if you consider all the costs and inconvenience of a prang, even if you escape uninjured.
Lies, damned lies and statistics.
In fact, just checking the stats - 20mph's biggest effect in Edinburgh was a reduction in slight injuries for car occupants, falling 1:1 with car on car collisions. Whiplash, I presume.
That might have more to do with insurers refusing to meet whiplash claims for collisions at 20 mph?
I think we can stop worrying about Diane Abbot and the mythical £2K tax bollocks making a dent on this campaign now.
Every time you think the Tory campaign has hit rock bottom, they find a way to go worse. Making the announcement in the rain seems absolute tiny mistake in comparison.
Has there been a worse Tory / Labour campaign in modern history? And we thought awful Elvis tribute act was embarrassingly shit.
May's 2017 campaign is now seen in a new light.
My Dad say Labour 1983 was worse than this.
Mind you, as I relate all the latest developments to him straight off of PB, he appears in a state of shock.
Hmmm. 1983 is an interesting comparison.
Labour could have been wiped out as a party in 1983 if the SDP had done just a little better. They barely avoided crossover.
It took another 14 years before they got into power.
Are we buying or selling the Tory party at 14 years in the wilderness?
Good morning all.
It’s a good question: we should be.
I set a quiz yesterday evening about what was the largest ever majority in this country to be lost at the subsequent General Election? The answer came back 1929 when Stanley Baldwin lost his 208 seat majority. There were particular circumstances that time, including women over the age of 21 getting the vote for the first time in 1929 so it’s not a like-for-like.
Anything over a 150 seat majority would almost certainly mean at least a second term for Labour.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
Some of the deadliest stories are the slow burn ones. It happened to Mrs May after the death tax and her robotic responses. The MayBot grew into a meme.
This Sunak story is spreading from what I can see. It’s now on the Sky News front page. It’s trending on TwitterX.
I’m not trying to be partisan, I’m just suggesting you may be wrong this time.
What it says is that he doesn’t have the political savvy or touch to be a good politician. That’s not about your politics. There have been brilliant politicians across the divide.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. He lost to Liz Truss, after all.
Anyway, I may watch tonight’s debate, partly for the spectacle of Farage's rabble rousing.
I thought Penny Mordaunt was poor in the tory leader debates, which is curious as she has made a couple of good speeches in the HoC. So it’ll be interesting to see if she improves sufficiently for it to be her latest leadership launch.
Got to wonder whose side that papers on these days.
If one of the Nationals came out of the closet to endorse Reform, it would be an historic moment in UK political history do we think?
The Telegraph possibly will endorse Farage’s mob this time aa they often seem very much a tribute to the Völkischer Beobachter these days.
Alistair Heath's articles for example, are just so shrill and dumb.... so full of right win hyperbole and agitation.... it is terrifying to see that kind of hitlerian rhetoric going unchecked in a major newspaper.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Absolutely no-one cares about this and it will have zero impact on the campaign or the GE result.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Got to wonder whose side that papers on these days.
If one of the Nationals came out of the closet to endorse Reform, it would be an historic moment in UK political history do we think?
The Telegraph possibly will endorse Farage’s mob this time aa they often seem very much a tribute to the Völkischer Beobachter these days.
Alistair Heath's articles for example, are just so shrill and dumb.... so full of right win hyperbole and agitation.... it is terrifying to see that kind of hitlerian rhetoric going unchecked in a major newspaper.
+1
To which we can add Charles Moore, Camilla Tominey, Allison Pearson, Janet Daley, Danniel Hannan …
I take the Saturday Telegraph. The paper has lost its way these past couple of years and they now come across as bewildered by events.
It has become an echo chamber of the reactionary right.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Absolutely no-one cares about this and it will have zero impact on the campaign or the GE result.
No one was going to criticize Sunak for staying in France longer . I do admire your spin on this but it was completely avoidable.
In terms of incredible but plausible war stories, my own Daddy Dearest used to tell one definitely true one from the local Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) chapter in his western Pennsylvania hometown steel town. Which was populated mostly by eastern & southern European immigrants and their children, along with contingents of Southern Blacks and Whites from rural Pennsylvania ("cake-eaters").
An older member of the local VFW circa 1955 had immigrated from Croatia, then part of Austria-Hungary before WW1 and was subsequently drafted into the US Army in 1917 and sent to fight on the Western Front. When returned back to western PA, he got his job back at the local steel mill.
Now he wanted to propose his slightly-younger brother for membership.
"He also fought in a foreign war". "Yeah - for the enemy!"
Which was true, as little brother had also been drafted . . . into the Austro-Hungarian army.
Now nobody there had any problem with either brother, or certainly the long-defunct Dual Monarchy. But the enemy's still the enemy. So what to do?
Solution was to enroll little brother in the VFW Auxillary, ordinarily wives of members but they made an exception just for him. Meaning he didn't have a vote on organization business . . . but he DID have bar privileges. Which was the reason he wanted to join in the first place.
When Americans say, "Thank you for your service" we really mean it.
Permanent very low deposits guaranteed by government has other negatives above the risk of bad loans.
Help to sell, more like.
Help to keep prices high.
Any ‘scheme’ that doesn’t involve millions of new houses being built, does nothing to alleviate the fundamental problem.
The single best thing government can do is planning reform, the second-best thing they can do is work with builders and banks to make prefab factory-built houses mortgageable.
Anyway, I may watch tonight’s debate, partly for the spectacle of Farage's rabble rousing.
I thought Penny Mordaunt was poor in the tory leader debates, which is curious as she has made a couple of good speeches in the HoC. So it’ll be interesting to see if she improves sufficiently for it to be her latest leadership launch.
I think broadcast debates for internal leadership elections are the worst idea in the world. I suspect none of the participants perform as well in them as cross party debates. The fact is you don’t want to be overly competitive and give opponents clips for their PPBs so the capacity to fluff it is huge.
I’m not sure you can call a 7 way match up a debate, I suspect it will descend rapidly into a verbal brawl. What needs to be avoided is a six on one pile on of Farage, because even if the points are valid he will win in that scenario.
So basically Rishi Sunak could have stayed at the D Day military commemorations but he left early because a full day of National Service is too much for the man launching a year of it?
I think when journalists are linking your mistake to other aspects of your campaign then you have absolutely screwed up.
I think this possibly qualifies as the worst veteran related political failure since Michael Foot’s donkey jacket, but it’s probably worse than that as Foot at least turned up.
Got to wonder whose side that papers on these days.
If one of the Nationals came out of the closet to endorse Reform, it would be an historic moment in UK political history do we think?
The Telegraph possibly will endorse Farage’s mob this time aa they often seem very much a tribute to the Völkischer Beobachter these days.
Alistair Heath's articles for example, are just so shrill and dumb.... so full of right win hyperbole and agitation.... it is terrifying to see that kind of hitlerian rhetoric going unchecked in a major newspaper.
+1
To which we can add Charles Moore, Camilla Tominey, Allison Pearson, Janet Daley, Danniel Hannan …
I take the Saturday Telegraph. The paper has lost its way these past couple of years and they now come across as bewildered by events.
It has become an echo chamber of the reactionary right.
The Telegraph just comes across as King Lear shouting at the storm. The Mail as the kind of senility that hides food it its pockets. Both are losing readers by the bucketful. I think that the off shore newspaper proprietors club is diminishing to the point, not merely of irrelevance but to the point of medical intervention.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Absolutely no-one cares about this and it will have zero impact on the campaign or the GE result.
No one was going to criticize Sunak for staying in France longer . I do admire your spin on this but it was completely avoidable.
So Sunak being Sunak is exactly the problem !
No spin it's just a hysterical over-reaction that will have zero bearing on anything.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
I just think it's silly to suggest he would have been criticised for not leaving the D-Day event early. It tells me you're not being objective.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
It is as you said a bit of a pile on, however come \July the fun starts as Starmer has to deliver.
First data coming in about the likely impact of the Welsh 20mph speed limit in residential areas.
The casualties on 20 and 30mph roads down by 29%. Difficult to split down as so many have changed category between the two. Also worth noting that that does not identify categories of casualty.
It's nice to have some numbers during the Election campaign, though only one quarter's worth.
The number of people injured on 20 and 30mph roads in Wales fell by almost a third in the final quarter of last year, new data published by the Welsh government shows.
The figures show there were 463 casualties on such roads between October and December, down from 681 in the same period a year earlier.
The Welsh Labour government has credited the introduction of default 20mph default speed limits, which took effect last September, but Conservatives said more data was needed. Plaid Cymru, which supported the policy, said the figures were "encouraging".
Labour has since committed to a review of the new law.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. It took about 2 minutes to find that road casualties have been falling continuously from a (very high) peak in 2005 and that the trend over the last 2 years is no different to the overall trend of the last 18 years (accepting a trough in 2020 when far fewer people were driving because of covid.)
I think you need to provide a cite on that TBH. You have data showing that trend for this subset of roads over 20 years?
You can't evaluate a particular intervention related to a particular subset by quoting a general trend; that's introducing noise into the data.
It's the Welsh Government's own statistics for road safety for 2022. It includes trends for the road casualties all the way back to 1979.
Unless of course you don’t trust the Welsh Government's own figures.
Careful - I'm don't know about Welsh stats but in Scotland much of the improvement has come from car occupants. Cars are very good at protecting at people inside in the event of a collision.
So 20mph is great news for people outside cars. And good news for car occupants too, if you consider all the costs and inconvenience of a prang, even if you escape uninjured.
Lies, damned lies and statistics.
In fact, just checking the stats - 20mph's biggest effect in Edinburgh was a reduction in slight injuries for car occupants, falling 1:1 with car on car collisions. Whiplash, I presume.
That might have more to do with insurers refusing to meet whiplash claims for collisions at 20 mph?
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Absolutely no-one cares about this and it will have zero impact on the campaign or the GE result.
No one was going to criticize Sunak for staying in France longer . I do admire your spin on this but it was completely avoidable.
So Sunak being Sunak is exactly the problem !
No spin it's just a hysterical over-reaction that will have zero bearing on anything.
Well, I'll agree with what you say about its not having much effect. I doubt anything will have much effect.
Farage's announcement has obviously boosted Reform a bit for the time being, but it's a card he can play only once.
I was just looking at the three most recent polls, compared with the previous ones by the same company. In both cases, Farage's announcement and the debate came cleanly between the sampling periods. They all went up to yesterday, so they should also have captured the effect of the accusations about Sunak lying.
The changes in the Con percentage were -1, -1 and -1. For Labour, -1, 0, -4.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
It is as you said a bit of a pile on, however come \July the fun starts as Starmer has to deliver.
Suddenly the attack will be on the defensive.
I don’t think Prime Minister Starmer is going to be unhappy about that.
Permanent very low deposits guaranteed by government has other negatives above the risk of bad loans.
What percentage of council houses sold are still in the hands of owner occupiers, as opposed to private rental companies?
40% of right to buy homes are now rented out privately.
PB likes to ignore the vast shifts in housing tenure in the last 14 years, but ultimately it's the reason why the country has become more unequal and why the number of natural Conservative voters has fallen. There is no evidence that a mass private housebuilding programme would reverse the trend and increase ownership - all the new homes will simply be hoovered up by those who have accumulated large savings.
Rachel Wearmouth @REWearmouth · 5m It’s completely unfathomable as to why any British Prime Minister would skip the 80th anniversary of D Day. It’s the job.
If a Labour Prime Minister had done such a thing, they would be shamed for the rest of their political career.
He DID NOT skip the 80th anniversary of D Day, he was there yesterday at Southsea and today in Normandy (which was primarily for heads of state and Rishi is not the King).
The same would apply to a Labour PM. Every other party leader is doing one of these ITV interviews, the main events in Normandy were over when Sunak recorded it. This story is utter rubbish and barrel scraping from Labour and Farage exploiting D Day for their party political ends.
Fortunately none of the mainstream media have it in their headlines and beyond the Westminster bubble nobody is interested
William spoke to President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the event. Mr Sunak did not attend the Omaha Beach ceremony, but UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Mr Starmer were both present.
He is going to need an excuse better than an XL Bully eat my homework.
I do not recall British soldiers at Omaha, it was a beach where US troops led the landings.
Sunak is also not the head of state or next head of state. Later in the day, 'Prince William joined heads of state at Omaha Beach'
The Canadians weren't at Omaha Beach either but Trudeau was there.
I am sure it will be revealed shortly was Sunak originally invited / accepted. If he was on the guest list along with Cameron and Starmer and didn't attend he is in big trouble.
It looks like it was only briefed in the morning that he wouldn't attend:
"Sunak to Skip High-Profile D-Day Event with Biden, Macron"
Seems like proof that he was originally invited to what Bloomberg calls a "meeting of international leaders".
It was not the G7 summit and most of those in attendance were heads of state which Sunak isn't
If he was originally invited, passed on it at the last minute, and it was because he did an ITV interview, he is in the deep shit.
No, he is in deep shit with the likes of you and Labour and Farage who want to make pathetic political points to exploit the D Day commemorations to boost your party. It is absolutely disgraceful.
He attended the British beach landing ceremonies, which is all he as UK head of government needed to attend. He is NOT US head of state, that is Biden, he is NOT Canadian head of state, that is the King with the Prince of Wales assisting him
I tend to agree.
I also think that the world works mostly by 'higher powers' than Rishi Sunak's election calendar. If Joe Biden had told him to attend, he would have attended. I think it's likely that this was seen as a good opportunity for incoming head boy SKS to be in the limelight, and Sunak was politely told to his presence was not required.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
It is as you said a bit of a pile on, however come \July the fun starts as Starmer has to deliver.
Suddenly the attack will be on the defensive.
I don’t think Prime Minister Starmer is going to be unhappy about that.
I suspect youre wrong. He will be getting more scrutiny post election and he doesnt handle it well. Expect more U turns and wibbling.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
I just think it's silly to suggest he would have been criticised for not leaving the D-Day event early. It tells me you're not being objective.
No, it tells me you have no perception whatsoever.
You'd have found a way to criticise Sunak no matter what he did, which tells me you're not being objective.
1) It is highly unlikely the Republicans will win Virginia. This therefore suggests polling is flattering them in terms of vote share;
2) If however the Democrats are losing votes in safe states like New York, Virginia and California that strongly suggests their vote is becoming more efficient, making Trump's presumed advantage less notable.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
It is as you said a bit of a pile on, however come \July the fun starts as Starmer has to deliver.
Suddenly the attack will be on the defensive.
You’re clinging on to this but it’s a bit desperate.
If the election goes as it currently now looks then come July 5th the mood will become very different. Labour will sweep in on a tide of good will and the tories will be down and out.
So, yes, Labour will make some mistakes but at least to start with there will be little attack left from the Opposition parties. And if they secure a 150+ majority then electorally speaking you can forget getting back to power for a decade.
And that’s if the tories sort themselves out. They might be in-fighting for some time and the country will be in no mood to forgive them for the utter shitshow for a very very long time.
Really? Truly? The Conservatives won’t recover from this for 15 years, if they do at all. Tell yourself otherwise if it helps you bear the defeat but you’ll be kidding yourself.
Permanent very low deposits guaranteed by government has other negatives above the risk of bad loans.
What percentage of council houses sold are still in the hands of owner occupiers, as opposed to private rental companies?
40% of right to buy homes are now rented out privately.
PB likes to ignore the vast shifts in housing tenure in the last 14 years, but ultimately it's the reason why the country has become more unequal and why the number of natural Conservative voters has fallen. There is no evidence that a mass private housebuilding programme would reverse the trend and increase ownership - all the new homes will simply be hoovered up by those who have accumulated large savings.
Tory MP texts tonight in total disgust about PM leaving the D Day commemorations early. Said when they saw the picture of Cameron with the other world leaders at the ceremony, they initially thought the BBC had chosen the wrong picture.
I think it incumbent on the BBC to substitute footage from an earlier ceremony to suggest Sunak didn't leave early. Like they did for Johnson at the Cenotaph in 2019 when he unceremoniously tossed his wreath upside down on the monument and they kindly replaced with footage from 2016 when he did it properly. What's good for Boris is good for Rishi.
1) It is highly unlikely the Republicans will win Virginia. This therefore suggests polling is flattering them in terms of vote share;
2) If however the Democrats are losing votes in safe states like New York, Virginia and California that strongly suggests their vote is becoming more efficient, making Trump's presumed advantage less notable.
But does it matter? It's really only the battle ground states that count. Red and Blue can pile up votes in their fiefdoms but largely to no effect.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
It is as you said a bit of a pile on, however come \July the fun starts as Starmer has to deliver.
Suddenly the attack will be on the defensive.
You’re clinging on to this but it’s a bit desperate.
If the election goes as it currently now looks then come July 5th the mood will become very different. Labour will sweep in on a tide of good will and the tories will be down and out.
So, yes, Labour will make some mistakes but at least to start with there will be little attack left from the Opposition parties. And if they secure a 150+ majority then electorally speaking you can forget getting back to power for a decade.
And that’s if the tories sort themselves out. They might be in-fighting for some time and the country will be in no mood to forgive them for the utter shitshow for a very very long time.
Really? Truly? The Conservatives won’t recover from this for 15 years, if they do at all. Tell yourself otherwise if it helps you bear the defeat but you’ll be kidding yourself.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
I just think it's silly to suggest he would have been criticised for not leaving the D-Day event early. It tells me you're not being objective.
No, it tells me you have no perception whatsoever.
You'd have found a way to criticise Sunak no matter what he did, which tells me you're not being objective.
You refuse to criticize Sunak regardless of what he does . He should have realized that coming back early to record an interview wasn’t a good look . Given the profile of Tory to Reform voters this was a gift to Farage .
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
It is as you said a bit of a pile on, however come \July the fun starts as Starmer has to deliver.
Suddenly the attack will be on the defensive.
I don’t think Prime Minister Starmer is going to be unhappy about that.
I suspect youre wrong. He will be getting more scrutiny post election and he doesnt handle it well. Expect more U turns and wibbling.
He’s campaigning to be PM, he knows what being PM means. If the fantasy that he won’t enjoy being PM gets you through the night, good for you.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
I just think it's silly to suggest he would have been criticised for not leaving the D-Day event early. It tells me you're not being objective.
No, it tells me you have no perception whatsoever.
You'd have found a way to criticise Sunak no matter what he did, which tells me you're not being objective.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
It is as you said a bit of a pile on, however come \July the fun starts as Starmer has to deliver.
Suddenly the attack will be on the defensive.
You’re clinging on to this but it’s a bit desperate.
If the election goes as it currently now looks then come July 5th the mood will become very different. Labour will sweep in on a tide of good will and the tories will be down and out.
So, yes, Labour will make some mistakes but at least to start with there will be little attack left from the Opposition parties. And if they secure a 150+ majority then electorally speaking you can forget getting back to power for a decade.
And that’s if the tories sort themselves out. They might be in-fighting for some time and the country will be in no mood to forgive them for the utter shitshow for a very very long time.
Really? Truly? The Conservatives won’t recover from this for 15 years, if they do at all. Tell yourself otherwise if it helps you bear the defeat but you’ll be kidding yourself.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
It is as you said a bit of a pile on, however come \July the fun starts as Starmer has to deliver.
Suddenly the attack will be on the defensive.
You’re clinging on to this but it’s a bit desperate.
If the election goes as it currently now looks then come July 5th the mood will become very different. Labour will sweep in on a tide of good will and the tories will be down and out.
So, yes, Labour will make some mistakes but at least to start with there will be little attack left from the Opposition parties. And if they secure a 150+ majority then electorally speaking you can forget getting back to power for a decade.
And that’s if the tories sort themselves out. They might be in-fighting for some time and the country will be in no mood to forgive them for the utter shitshow for a very very long time.
Really? Truly? The Conservatives won’t recover from this for 15 years, if they do at all. Tell yourself otherwise if it helps you bear the defeat but you’ll be kidding yourself.
In your dreams. Srarmer is getting an easy ride atm and little scrutiny. The press will turn on him when he's PM. Since he hasnt bothered to set out a platform and is being all things to all men he has no depth to his support so he will disappoint more people faster.
I see he's proposing to recognise a Hamas government today. More flip flopping.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
I just think it's silly to suggest he would have been criticised for not leaving the D-Day event early. It tells me you're not being objective.
No, it tells me you have no perception whatsoever.
You'd have found a way to criticise Sunak no matter what he did, which tells me you're not being objective.
Just casting my mind back to Tuesday’s leaders’ debate where Sunak argued that Starmer didn’t get the importance of the armed forces & was a threat to national security… and then left the D Day anniversary early for a media interview which won’t be broadcast for days.
Just casting my mind back to Tuesday’s leaders’ debate where Sunak argued that Starmer didn’t get the importance of the armed forces & was a threat to national security… and then left the D Day anniversary early for a media interview which won’t be broadcast for days.
Sunak had better hope his early departure from the D Day events doesn’t gain further traction . I still can’t understand the logic of what he did . Saying you’ll see world leaders next week at the G7 is irrelevant . This is probably the last time any of those veterans will be there and it just looks like he could care less .
If he'd stayed and missed other interviews and appointments he'd have been criticised as well for being absent from the campaign. The mood is to criticise Sunak for being Sunak.
Your mood is to defend Sunak whatever he does.
Not really, I've criticised Sunak plenty in the past.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
It is as you said a bit of a pile on, however come \July the fun starts as Starmer has to deliver.
Suddenly the attack will be on the defensive.
I don’t think Prime Minister Starmer is going to be unhappy about that.
I suspect youre wrong. He will be getting more scrutiny post election and he doesnt handle it well. Expect more U turns and wibbling.
He’s campaigning to be PM, he knows what being PM means. If the fantasy that he won’t enjoy being PM gets you through the night, good for you.
I dont know if he'll enjoy it or not, but he's very much like Sunak. He has got to being PM through the mistakes of his opponents not though any of his own achievements. PM and Loto are very different jobs.
Comments
"Sunak to Skip High-Profile D-Day Event with Biden, Macron"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-06/sunak-to-skip-high-profile-d-day-event-with-biden-macron
Tame compared to Starmer’s Manifesto 😈
He attended the British beach landing ceremonies, which is all he as UK head of government needed to attend. He is NOT US head of state, that is Biden, he is NOT Canadian head of state, that is the King with the Prince of Wales assisting him
Farage 38%
Starmer 30%
Blunkett 30%
Johnson 30%
Brown 26%
Mordaunt 26%
Kinnock 25%
Khan 24%
Miliband (Ed) 24%
Benn 24%
Rayner 24%
Major 24%
Heseltine 24%
Braverman 24%
Patel 23%
Burnham 23%
Tebbitt 23%
Skinner 22%
Prescott 22%
Davidson 22%
https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/popularity/politicians-political-figures/all
You are so hyper-partisan you struggle to see those that are not and just calling it as they see it.
Designed by sculptor Charles Bergen, the five waymarkers – sculptural signposts located lower down the hillside from the memorial – point to the five D-Day landing beaches. They feature scenes representing different aspects of the landings. . . .
Omaha Beach
The main force landing on Omaha Beach was American, but British forces were in support.
In the centre of the waymarker, an LCA (‘Landing Craft, Assault’) of the Royal Navy delivers American infantry to the beach. A significant proportion of the troops landing here on D-Day were put ashore by British landing craft. . .
On the edge of the waymarker, men of the US Rangers climb the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, several miles further west . . . Two B-26 medium bombers fly overhead: this type was operated by both American and British air forces. . . . Minesweepers led the Allied fleet across the English Channel. Many of the minesweepers at this beach were British or Canadian.
Next to the minesweepers are a pair of ships of the Merchant Navy. These civilian-manned ships arrived off Normandy from D-Day onwards, and played an essential role in bringing additional troops and supplies to France.
https://www.britishnormandymemorial.org/the-memorial/waymarkers/#:~:text=The main force landing on,ashore by British landing craft.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Nigel_Farage
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/06/farage-hits-out-sunak-leaving-d-day-commemorations-early/
We had Percy Hobart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRl0VICYS9c
https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/popularity/politicians-political-figures/men
https://news.sky.com/story/labour-expected-to-pledge-palestinian-state-recognition-in-manifesto-13149148
Absolute virtue signalling and classic Starmer, yes, but no, but yeah kind of.
The Grey invader Squirrel very dangerous for the Red ones. Chewed their nuts so they couldn’t make babies. So i was told.
If one of the Nationals came out of the closet to endorse Reform, it would be an historic moment in UK political history do we think?
As in "Six Armies in Normandy" by John Keegan.
Don't know the (literally) gory details, but am 100% sure there was Poles in the fray on D-Day.
BTW, I knew a guy who was NOT a D-Day veteran, but did land in Normandy shortly after. Serving as a cook for General Patton. He was Jimmy Locke, a Chinese immigrant, whose son Gary became the first Asian American governor on the US outside of Hawaii.
There's also the interesting story of a Korean who was drafted into the Japanese Army labor corps in late 1930s. Just in time to take place in pre-WW2 border fighting against the Soviet Union (which the Soviets won) and get captured, then drafted into the Red Army. When Hitler invaded Russia, he was among the millions of other by the Wehrmacht. Which not unsurprisingly drafted him into it's labor corps, then sent him westward to help build the Atlantic Wall.
Thus he found himself on one of the "American" beaches of Normandy on 6/6/1944, and was soon a POW in US Army custody. Who at first had no clue who he was, as nobody could understand a word he said, and visa versa. Eventually they rounded up a Korean American GI, who translated the guys amazing story of being drafted into three different armies, captured twice and crossing the from the Sea of Japan to the English Channel.
Then they did the obvious: they drafted him into the US Army labor corps.
Which kills this farcical story stone dead even if you bothered to read the article
We see time and time again the public have very little idea who hold leading positions in cabinet / shadow cabinet.
https://www.foxnews.com/official-polls/fox-news-poll-biden-trump-dead-heat-virginia
Biden 48%
Trump 48%
https://news.sky.com/story/labour-to-offer-freedom-to-buy-for-young-people-with-mortgage-guarantee-scheme-13148889
Permanent very low deposits guaranteed by government has other negatives above the risk of bad loans.
Dukakis was smart, articulate (he hosted a good public-tv show on political issues) and principled politico, who served several successful terms as Governor of Massachusetts. And he ran a savvy, successful campaign for the Dem nomination, coming out of the convention with a sizable polling lead.
Which he managed to piss away in short order, by defending . . . wait for it . . . flag burning as constitutionally-protected free speech. Which it is in America, but WTF?
Dukakis's poll numbers started dropping like a rock. NOT helped when Republicans publicized film of him riding atop a tank wearing a funny helmet. Which of course was nothing to the GOP's "Willy Horton Ad" topped off by answering question - during a POTUS debate with Bush the Elder - what his reaction would be if someone murdered his wife. Which was - pull out a law book to expound on the Constitution.
Fascinating story all the same. Certainly _possible_ it's true
That said, Farage's numbers are remarkably high, his net popularity is -4, much better than Johnson (-26), Cameron (-41), Sunak (-35), Blair (-30), May (-26), Sturgeon (-27), Corbyn (-37), Truss (-50). Only Starmer (-8) comes anywhere near Farage among the top 10 most famous politicians.
Going lower down the fame scale, there are some active politicians in positive figures, Penny Mordaunt is on +8, Andy Burnham is +5, Liz Kendall is +6, Chris Bryant is +8, Rebecca Long-Bailey is +3, Tom Tugendhat is +7, Sian Berry +4, Patrick Harvie +7. At these sorts of levels obscurity is beneficial, their fame is likely limited to people within their own party so your political opponents who would tend to dislike them don't only because they haven't heard of them yet.
He's done as much damage to the country as any Tory.
Fuck him and the horse he ride in on.
Mordaunt isn't in a position to say that, of course. But everyone else should.
One thing she's quite good at is adopting a supercilious tone.
An older member of the local VFW circa 1955 had immigrated from Croatia, then part of Austria-Hungary before WW1 and was subsequently drafted into the US Army in 1917 and sent to fight on the Western Front. When returned back to western PA, he got his job back at the local steel mill.
Now he wanted to propose his slightly-younger brother for membership.
"He also fought in a foreign war". "Yeah - for the enemy!"
Which was true, as little brother had also been drafted . . . into the Austro-Hungarian army.
Now nobody there had any problem with either brother, or certainly the long-defunct Dual Monarchy. But the enemy's still the enemy. So what to do?
Solution was to enroll little brother in the VFW Auxillary, ordinarily wives of members but they made an exception just for him. Meaning he didn't have a vote on organization business . . . but he DID have bar privileges. Which was the reason he wanted to join in the first place.
When Americans say, "Thank you for your service" we really mean it.
Same logic is why they drop the speed limit to 50mph on Motorways when it's busy.
So 20mph is great news for people outside cars. And good news for car occupants too, if you consider all the costs and inconvenience of a prang, even if you escape uninjured.
Lies, damned lies and statistics.
The photo of him after he was caught by the Gestapo in one of his failed escape attempts is awesome.
Ironically he died aged 81 during a visit back to Camp Toccoa in Georgia where he had done his original parachute training.
Amongst his various medals he received the US Bronze Star, the French Croix de Guerre and the Russian Order of the Red Star.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Beyrle
For instance, the RAF:
https://www.therafatomahabeach.com/
"Their story has remained relatively unknown, but they suffered 48 casualties out of a group of 180 or so, and only in 2012 was their heroism recognised by the unveiling of a monument at Vierville-sur-Mer. It is a remarkable and moving story."
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and had a young family. Despite this, he volunteered to serve - in the Navy, a perhaps odd choice for someone who lived about as far inland as you can get in the UK. He joined the DEMS force. We have a picture of him from the war, on a ship covered in ice, presumably in the North Atlantic (I don't think he did a Murmansk run).
Because there was a shortage of guns and crew; they would have their anti-aircraft guns on one ship outbound, and when they got beyond German air cover, they would be transferred onto a ship coming inbound via something like breeches buoy. The gun going across first. Hence, although he sailed for America on many occasions, he never got there...
He had a very mathematical brain, and after a couple of years he was posted ashore. He ended up working behind Portsmouth, and this is where the D-Day connection comes in. I have zero proof of this, but family legend has it that he was involved with planning the logistics for D-Day, and he wrote up the orders for some of the ship's captains on the day.
To perhaps back this up; he was working there at the time (his family were based in the New Forest). Perhaps more importantly; he did not get to see his family for a while immediately before D-Day, the legend has it for security reasons.
I really wish I'd encouraged him to talk more about his experiences, but he was a fairly religious man, and my impression was the war was not something he wanted to talk about. So we have the DEMS medal, a few photos, and lots of rumours.
It’s a good question: we should be.
I set a quiz yesterday evening about what was the largest ever majority in this country to be lost at the subsequent General Election? The answer came back 1929 when Stanley Baldwin lost his 208 seat majority. There were particular circumstances that time, including women over the age of 21 getting the vote for the first time in 1929 so it’s not a like-for-like.
Anything over a 150 seat majority would almost certainly mean at least a second term for Labour.
Some of the deadliest stories are the slow burn ones. It happened to Mrs May after the death tax and her robotic responses. The MayBot grew into a meme.
This Sunak story is spreading from what I can see. It’s now on the Sky News front page. It’s trending on TwitterX.
I’m not trying to be partisan, I’m just suggesting you may be wrong this time.
What it says is that he doesn’t have the political savvy or touch to be a good politician. That’s not about your politics. There have been brilliant politicians across the divide.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. He lost to Liz Truss, after all.
Probably inflated by the fact he's just back in the news and somewhat "fresh" through his latest relaunch.
Not sure what the rest signifies- probably just that 20% of the population are fairly politically aware/engaged.
I thought Penny Mordaunt was poor in the tory leader debates, which is curious as she has made a couple of good speeches in the HoC. So it’ll be interesting to see if she improves sufficiently for it to be her latest leadership launch.
Absolutely no-one cares about this and it will have zero impact on the campaign or the GE result.
To which we can add Charles Moore, Camilla Tominey, Allison Pearson, Janet Daley, Danniel Hannan …
I take the Saturday Telegraph. The paper has lost its way these past couple of years and they now come across as bewildered by events.
It has become an echo chamber of the reactionary right.
So Sunak being Sunak is exactly the problem !
https://x.com/ctounsel1/status/1798755462898421796
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13503539/green-party-investigation-anti-semitic-slurs-conspiracy-theories.html
The 'Green' party really is p*ss-poor.
(I put 'green' in quotes because they're not really that interested in greenery.)
I don’t know with this one but it’s not astute politics by Sunak. Especially as his last remaining core support were the people following the events.
He may be good on numbers but he’s a terrible politician
Any ‘scheme’ that doesn’t involve millions of new houses being built, does nothing to alleviate the fundamental problem.
The single best thing government can do is planning reform, the second-best thing they can do is work with builders and banks to make prefab factory-built houses mortgageable.
I’m not sure you can call a 7 way match up a debate, I suspect it will descend rapidly into a verbal brawl. What needs to be avoided is a six on one pile on of Farage, because even if the points are valid he will win in that scenario.
https://x.com/heawood/status/1798841184141574248?s=46
I think when journalists are linking your mistake to other aspects of your campaign then you have absolutely screwed up.
I think this possibly qualifies as the worst veteran related political failure since Michael Foot’s donkey jacket, but it’s probably worse than that as Foot at least turned up.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/06/its-time-to-fix-our-broken-housing-market/
One anti-Chinese (we have had an influx of people from Hong Kong into the village), and the other anti-Jewish *and* anti-Ukrainian.
One was by a child, and was apparently: "I hope Russia wins, because they're killing Jews in Ukraine."
I'm not really sure what to do, or say, about any of this. Just that it has saddened me.
https://x.com/danneidle/status/1798834100557774981?s=61
I think that the off shore newspaper proprietors club is diminishing to the point, not merely of irrelevance but to the point of medical intervention.
Your trite comment is simply because I'm not joining in the pile-on, and that bothers you.
Suddenly the attack will be on the defensive.
Do any of the "next Leader of the Opposition" lost have actual political nous derived from experience fighting a difficult campaign?
Sir Shifty does another U turn
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/labour-drops-legal-claims-against-jeremy-corbyn-era-staff/ar-BB1nJNFG?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=b6b52924df0943debad7cdb2688b3480&ei=61
a good time to bury bad news.
Farage's announcement has obviously boosted Reform a bit for the time being, but it's a card he can play only once.
I was just looking at the three most recent polls, compared with the previous ones by the same company. In both cases, Farage's announcement and the debate came cleanly between the sampling periods. They all went up to yesterday, so they should also have captured the effect of the accusations about Sunak lying.
The changes in the Con percentage were -1, -1 and -1.
For Labour, -1, 0, -4.
PB likes to ignore the vast shifts in housing tenure in the last 14 years, but ultimately it's the reason why the country has become more unequal and why the number of natural Conservative voters has fallen. There is no evidence that a mass private housebuilding programme would reverse the trend and increase ownership - all the new homes will simply be hoovered up by those who have accumulated large savings.
I also think that the world works mostly by 'higher powers' than Rishi Sunak's election calendar. If Joe Biden had told him to attend, he would have attended. I think it's likely that this was seen as a good opportunity for incoming head boy SKS to be in the limelight, and Sunak was politely told to his presence was not required.
You'd have found a way to criticise Sunak no matter what he did, which tells me you're not being objective.
1) It is highly unlikely the Republicans will win Virginia. This therefore suggests polling is flattering them in terms of vote share;
2) If however the Democrats are losing votes in safe states like New York, Virginia and California that strongly suggests their vote is becoming more efficient, making Trump's presumed advantage less notable.
If the election goes as it currently now looks then come July 5th the mood will become very different. Labour will sweep in on a tide of good will and the tories will be down and out.
So, yes, Labour will make some mistakes but at least to start with there will be little attack left from the Opposition parties. And if they secure a 150+ majority then electorally speaking you can forget getting back to power for a decade.
And that’s if the tories sort themselves out. They might be in-fighting for some time and the country will be in no mood to forgive them for the utter shitshow for a very very long time.
Really? Truly? The Conservatives won’t recover from this for 15 years, if they do at all. Tell yourself otherwise if it helps you bear the defeat but you’ll be kidding yourself.
I see he's proposing to recognise a Hamas government today. More flip flopping.
Just casting my mind back to Tuesday’s leaders’ debate where Sunak argued that Starmer didn’t get the importance of the armed forces & was a threat to national security… and then left the D Day anniversary early for a media interview which won’t be broadcast for days.
@KevinASchofield
Tory minister David Johnston on Sunak's early exit from the D-Day commemorations
"The PM was at the service in Portsmouth on Wednesday and he was in Normandy yesterday. I don't know exactly when he left."
It's going to be a long broadcast round for him ...