This bit in particular suggests it's not all hot air, even if the language is overly florid:
Review, Repurpose, Retrain or Retire Capabilities As the nature of defence and deterrence evolves, so must the arsenal of capabilities. As resources and funding will always be limited, choices may need to be made as to which capabilities should be deprioritised* if they cannot be repurposed. Advances in technology will accelerate the need for focus and prioritisation, with emerging technology rendering more existing capabilities redundant over time. Identifying and reducing support for these capabilities will be key. Furthermore, rather than trying to maintain every defence capability and often doing so insufficiently well, the UK must focus on delivering key capabilities effectively...
...There is evidence to suggest that neither the government nor the armed forces are currently taking these kinds of decisions. Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee found a £16.9 billion deficit between the MoD’s stated capability requirements and its budget, warning that “the MoD has not had the discipline to balance its budget by making the difficult choices about which operational activities to curtail and which equipment programmes it can and cannot afford”. Similarly, experts have warned of cultural barriers to this kind of prioritisation within the armed forces, with some senior leaders concerned that winding down certain capabilities jeopardises the perception of our armed forces as a tier-one fighting power...
* I think they mean cut.
Genuinely interesting. As with space exloration, the future of the military is going be defined by who is quick and nimble and cheap, rather than those spending billions on decade-long programs designed to fight the last war.
Meanwhile, have another video of a small Ukranian drone with a grenade on board, $2k tops, taking out a Russian tank.
I think that's Ed Balls, The Sturge, and George Osborne already signed up for ITV. It's going to be unbeatable coverage –– AGAIN.
As long as Balls accidentally on purpose locks Peston in the toilets.
I think Balls and Osborne are very good when I have seen them in conversions (better than Bad Al and Rory the Tory). Thrasher from Sky is the best for analysing the results as they come in.
Did that actually happen? LOL.
Yes Balls-Osborne are a great double act. Their podcast is excellent.
No, I was joking about if only. I like them because of course they have their political bias / side, but are very good at rising above that and discussing what is a good / bad idea on its merits. I am not massively interested in people who are solely party political shouting at one another i.e. most of tv politics coverage these days.
I think the problem with TRiP is that the hosts both hate the Government and the current incarnation of the Tory Party and do so on a deep moral level. Campbell is Labour, so that's to be expected but Rory is pretty much the same. They tend to end up moaning in agreement about how bad the Government is (and I agree with them, but it's not very interesting). I expect the dynamic to change post election.
In contrast, Balls-Osborne, while they have little good to say about the current Government, have a frisson of partisanship that fuels interesting discussion about, as you say, the political merits and implications of the parties' positions on various issues. It's a much more political discussion.
This bit in particular suggests it's not all hot air, even if the language is overly florid:
Review, Repurpose, Retrain or Retire Capabilities As the nature of defence and deterrence evolves, so must the arsenal of capabilities. As resources and funding will always be limited, choices may need to be made as to which capabilities should be deprioritised* if they cannot be repurposed. Advances in technology will accelerate the need for focus and prioritisation, with emerging technology rendering more existing capabilities redundant over time. Identifying and reducing support for these capabilities will be key. Furthermore, rather than trying to maintain every defence capability and often doing so insufficiently well, the UK must focus on delivering key capabilities effectively...
...There is evidence to suggest that neither the government nor the armed forces are currently taking these kinds of decisions. Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee found a £16.9 billion deficit between the MoD’s stated capability requirements and its budget, warning that “the MoD has not had the discipline to balance its budget by making the difficult choices about which operational activities to curtail and which equipment programmes it can and cannot afford”. Similarly, experts have warned of cultural barriers to this kind of prioritisation within the armed forces, with some senior leaders concerned that winding down certain capabilities jeopardises the perception of our armed forces as a tier-one fighting power...
* I think they mean cut.
Genuinely interesting. As with space exloration, the future of the military is going be defined by who is quick and nimble and cheap, rather than those spending billions on decade-long programs designed to fight the last war.
Meanwhile, have another video of a small Ukranian drone with a grenade on board, $2k tops, taking out a Russian tank.
Two drones, each carrying an explosive (an artillery shell) can take out an Abrams. One to immobilise it by taking out the track. Another to explode the shells in the rear turret semi-autoloader.
Two drones. An Abrams. The best tank in history defeated by Xmas presents for your nephew.
I think his Eurovision style would work very well for election night. He'd have found out all the gossip about which MP had done what to piss off the locals, etc.
OT - NYT - Jerry West, One of Basketball’s Greatest Players, Dies at 86
He was a high-scoring Hall of Fame guard for the Lakers and later an executive with the team. His image became the N.B.A.’s logo.
Jerry West, who emerged from West Virginia coal country to become one of basketball’s greatest players, a signature figure in the history of the Los Angeles Lakers and a literal icon of the sport — his is the silhouette on the logo of the National Basketball Association, died on Wednesday. He was 86. . . .
The 1971-72 Lakers won 69 games, a record at the time . . . including a still unequaled streak of 33 in a row. When they avenged their loss to the Knicks, winning the 1972 championship, West spoke after the last game with a colossal sense of relief . . . In 1958, his junior year at West Virginia University, his team made it to the national finals against California, only to lose by a single point.
“The last time I won a championship was in the 12th grade,” West said after he scored 23 points as the Lakers beat the Knicks 114-100 to capture the series in five games.
As the Lakers general manager, West succeeded more often. He led a team that included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and James Worthy to a championship in 1985 — at last sweet revenge against the Celtics — and again in 1987 and 1988. . . .
He was probably best known . . . for excelling in tough situations and big games, for wanting the ball when the game was in the balance, and for making shots under pressure. . . .
In 2000, as executive vice-president (his role was as a super-general manager, with the authority over personnel), he won again, having brought aboard Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. West left the Lakers after that season, but the team built largely on his watch won two more championships in a row. . .
SSI - Flags now hanging at half-staff across West Virginia for the boy from Cabin Creek. And perhaps in parts of Lithuania and Los Angeles County as well.
Parents are remortgaging their homes to raise money for school fees over fears a Labour government would push them to “breaking point”.
The party has pledged to end the VAT exemption for independent schools, which could add 20pc to fees as early as September.
Sir Keir Starmer has promised to spend the £1.7bn he claims the policy will raise on recruiting 6,500 new state school teachers.
However, David Boddy, chair of ASIS, a business consultancy for the education sector, said he had spoken to parents “with tears in their eyes”, many of whom had decided to take out large loans to provide a buffer against rising fees.
Its a bit like those weird regular pieces about I earn £100k a year, get free meals at work, but can't afford anything.
Today's one is I earn £45k a year, spend £25k a year on racing cars....does quick maths, take home is ~£35k...i.e. they are claiming to live on £900 a month. Its possible, but would you be spending £25k a year on your hobby if you did? Absolutely bank and mum and dad involved there or very least no Sky Sports for them.
This bit in particular suggests it's not all hot air, even if the language is overly florid:
Review, Repurpose, Retrain or Retire Capabilities As the nature of defence and deterrence evolves, so must the arsenal of capabilities. As resources and funding will always be limited, choices may need to be made as to which capabilities should be deprioritised* if they cannot be repurposed. Advances in technology will accelerate the need for focus and prioritisation, with emerging technology rendering more existing capabilities redundant over time. Identifying and reducing support for these capabilities will be key. Furthermore, rather than trying to maintain every defence capability and often doing so insufficiently well, the UK must focus on delivering key capabilities effectively...
...There is evidence to suggest that neither the government nor the armed forces are currently taking these kinds of decisions. Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee found a £16.9 billion deficit between the MoD’s stated capability requirements and its budget, warning that “the MoD has not had the discipline to balance its budget by making the difficult choices about which operational activities to curtail and which equipment programmes it can and cannot afford”. Similarly, experts have warned of cultural barriers to this kind of prioritisation within the armed forces, with some senior leaders concerned that winding down certain capabilities jeopardises the perception of our armed forces as a tier-one fighting power...
* I think they mean cut.
Genuinely interesting. As with space exloration, the future of the military is going be defined by who is quick and nimble and cheap, rather than those spending billions on decade-long programs designed to fight the last war.
Meanwhile, have another video of a small Ukranian drone with a grenade on board, $2k tops, taking out a Russian tank.
The Bradley IFV seems to be the foreign-supplied armoured vehicle that appears most regularly in Ukrainian propaganda videos, with a fair number of Russian tank and other armoured vehicle kills - some working in combination with drones.
When you compare to the Russian use of motorbikes as an alternative form of battlefield mobility, I think it's clear that there's still a role for heavy armour on the drone-dominated battlefield.
Oh you still have to have armoured vehicles and tanks, but when there’s an actual war happening quantity is better than quality, especially when the new quality is several years away. Hence the popularity of the Bradley.
That Soviet-era tanks, and their Russian successors, all have a fatal flaw in how they store ammunition, is merely a large bonus at this point. The Russian tanks are getting their turrets blown off and everything inside totally cooked, whereas the Western tanks taking hits are mostly being recovered for repair.
Its a bit like those weird regular pieces about I earn £100k a year, get free meals at work, but can't afford anything.
Today's one is I earn £45k a year, spend £25k a year on racing cars....does quick maths, take home is ~£35k...i.e. they are claiming to live on £900 a month. Its possible, but would you be spending £25k a year on your hobby if you did? Absolutely bank and mum and dad involved there or very least no Sky Sports for them.
The funny thing is that he’s a driving instructor, of regular cars.
He could earn more money as a driving instructor at the racecar school, which is what I assumed his job was from the headline, helping a wunch of bankers qualify for their dream of racing at Le Mans this weekend.
The Telegraph has gone batshit of late, that article is so off the charts crazy it makes the National Enquirer look like a credible source of news.
Or they could, you know, just put their child in a state school like most people.
We have one child in private secondary school and one in state primary. Why the private school? Why indeed. We were seduced by the gleaming facilities and impressive open days. If we couldn't afford the school fees we would move our eldest to a state school without a second thought.
a 46-year-old man has been arrested at his home in Barnet, north London, as part of a criminal investigation into suspected offences committed in the procurement of contracts for personal protective equipment by the company PPE Medpro
🆕Our latest @moreincommon_@TheNewsAgents voting intention poll finds Labour have a 16 pt lead over the Conservatives 🔵 CON 25% (-2) 🔴 LAB 41% (-3) 🟠 LIB DEM 10% (+1) 🟣 REF UK 13% (+2) 🟢 GRN 5% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3%(-) Dates 11-12/6, N=2037, change on 5-7 both on new methodology
So if she can't afford the fees she has to take a massive pay cut because the state school won't fit around her shifts? Wouldn't keeping her high-paid job and hiring some sort of au pair be a better approach?
Its a bit like those weird regular pieces about I earn £100k a year, get free meals at work, but can't afford anything.
Today's one is I earn £45k a year, spend £25k a year on racing cars....does quick maths, take home is ~£35k...i.e. they are claiming to live on £900 a month. Its possible, but would you be spending £25k a year on your hobby if you did? Absolutely bank and mum and dad involved there or very least no Sky Sports for them.
For some people their sob stories just do not add up.
Still nothing will beat that Guardian sob story from 2010 where the bloke argued the cutting of child benefit would stop his kids from receiving piano lessons.
This bit in particular suggests it's not all hot air, even if the language is overly florid:
Review, Repurpose, Retrain or Retire Capabilities As the nature of defence and deterrence evolves, so must the arsenal of capabilities. As resources and funding will always be limited, choices may need to be made as to which capabilities should be deprioritised* if they cannot be repurposed. Advances in technology will accelerate the need for focus and prioritisation, with emerging technology rendering more existing capabilities redundant over time. Identifying and reducing support for these capabilities will be key. Furthermore, rather than trying to maintain every defence capability and often doing so insufficiently well, the UK must focus on delivering key capabilities effectively...
...There is evidence to suggest that neither the government nor the armed forces are currently taking these kinds of decisions. Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee found a £16.9 billion deficit between the MoD’s stated capability requirements and its budget, warning that “the MoD has not had the discipline to balance its budget by making the difficult choices about which operational activities to curtail and which equipment programmes it can and cannot afford”. Similarly, experts have warned of cultural barriers to this kind of prioritisation within the armed forces, with some senior leaders concerned that winding down certain capabilities jeopardises the perception of our armed forces as a tier-one fighting power...
* I think they mean cut.
Some years ago, the US Army spent a fortune on a series of programs to design a new super duper rifle. To increase hit rate.
They discovered, almost by accident, during the testing, that the biggest improvement was teaching soldiers to shoot, and giving them practise.
No sh!t, Sherlock! That more training and and an excess of ammo makes for better shooters, over trying to improve on commodity rifles at a cost of billions, tells you all that’s wrong with military procurement.
That NATO is currently scrambling to get production lines of 152mm and 155mm tank ammo up and running, is an indictment of this type of thinking, which is everywhere in the military supply chain. The best gun is the one you have.
I was in a US shooting range the other day stapling a target to a bit of cardboard and had the startling realisation that the stapler was about 10 times as complex a piece of engineering as the .32 revolver I proposed to shoot at the target. Small arms design has been a solved problem for 150 odd years.
Parents are remortgaging their homes to raise money for school fees over fears a Labour government would push them to “breaking point”.
The party has pledged to end the VAT exemption for independent schools, which could add 20pc to fees as early as September.
Sir Keir Starmer has promised to spend the £1.7bn he claims the policy will raise on recruiting 6,500 new state school teachers.
However, David Boddy, chair of ASIS, a business consultancy for the education sector, said he had spoken to parents “with tears in their eyes”, many of whom had decided to take out large loans to provide a buffer against rising fees.
Private schools can absorb some of that , they don’t have to pass the full increase onto parents . Alot of the public are sick of the constant whining by some parents who think the world revolves around whether they can send their kid to a private school.
The country is in a hell of a mess , public services are imploding so for most this private school issue leaves many thinking meh!
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
Yup! That area isn’t filled with Etons and Harrows, it’s filled with the £15k schools of the sort where the parents forego holidays to pay the fees. I was one of those kids three decades ago. The Hants/Berks/Surrey border towns are all like that, with aspirational parents getting 6am trains to London.
The Telegraph has gone batshit of late, that article is so off the charts crazy it makes the National Enquirer look like a credible source of news.
It's always been Tory but used to be serious and credible not so long ago. It's been turned into an absolute comicbook.
Not sure it’s all that Tory anymore really.
To be fair to them does anyone really know what it is to be Tory anymore? One day lots of immigration, the next none, one day taxing non doms is a disaster, the next its a good thing, same with energy price caps, overseas students, HS2, et al.
Hard to maintain support for a party that flip flops all over the place creating havoc.
Michael Crick is partisan right-wing Labour of the sort that absolutely loathes the LibDems. He's done some fine journalism in his time and the @TomorrowsMPs feed is invaluable, but he's not exactly an impartial commentator.
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
Yup! That area isn’t filled with Etons and Harrows, it’s filled with the £15k schools of the sort where the parents forego holidays to pay the fees. I was one of those kids three decades ago. The Hants/Berks/Surrey border towns are all like that, with aspirational parents getting 6am trains to London.
They're aspiring to an early grave with that sort of nonsense.
Spending quality time with their parents would be more in the children's interest than being sent to a posho school where they can learn Grade A arrogance.
🆕Our latest @moreincommon_@TheNewsAgents voting intention poll finds Labour have a 16 pt lead over the Conservatives 🔵 CON 25% (-2) 🔴 LAB 41% (-3) 🟠 LIB DEM 10% (+1) 🟣 REF UK 13% (+2) 🟢 GRN 5% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3%(-) Dates 11-12/6, N=2037, change on 5-7 both on new methodology
There's definitely a trend this week. Labour down, Tories down but a bit less so, LD up, Ref up. No real trend in Green and SNP slightly recovering in Scottish polls.
Little net change in blocs generally but this one isn't so good for the left. LLG 56 (-3), RefCon 38 (=). Rounding/other +3%.
Polling card has arrived, with "remember you need photo id" in large colourful font. Is that to remind Boris?
Shirley BoJo will be mailing his vote in from Santo Domingo?
Speaking of postal matters, in Ireland one of the newly-elected local councillors is Honore Kamegni for the Greens, originally from Cameron and the first Black on Cork City council.
According to RTE, Kamegni
worked for An Post for the past 16 years and spent 14 of those as a postman in Douglas and Rochestown.
Well used to going door to door, Mr Kamegni said that he "knocked at 15,000 doors from the rural to the city and everyone was very, very encouraging".
"I think the people of Cork city electing me shows that they reject all the hatred, all the hostility that's going on online, I think we are one," Mr Kamegni said.
SSI - As I've said previously PB's village postie, Blanchelivermore would be a superior candidate on the ground, for whatever office he wanted to run for IF he wanted to run for one at all.
Certainly on his accustomed turf, but methinks he could do the same in a brand-new patch from a standing start.
So if she can't afford the fees she has to take a massive pay cut because the state school won't fit around her shifts? Wouldn't keeping her high-paid job and hiring some sort of au pair be a better approach?
But, post Brexit, she can't get an East European au pair on minimum wage anymore.
🆕Our latest @moreincommon_@TheNewsAgents voting intention poll finds Labour have a 16 pt lead over the Conservatives 🔵 CON 25% (-2) 🔴 LAB 41% (-3) 🟠 LIB DEM 10% (+1) 🟣 REF UK 13% (+2) 🟢 GRN 5% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3%(-) Dates 11-12/6, N=2037, change on 5-7 both on new methodology
One of the higher Conservative ratings and one of the lower Labour leads. I don't know their methodology and how it differs from other pollsters but clearly they are finding something different from other polling organisations.
Hopefully they will publish the full tables so we can see what's what.
I don't know how much of the moves could just be rounding - after all 43.6 to 41.4 is down 2.2 but with rounding it's down three. Again, hopefully some full data tables will help.
🆕Our latest @moreincommon_@TheNewsAgents voting intention poll finds Labour have a 16 pt lead over the Conservatives 🔵 CON 25% (-2) 🔴 LAB 41% (-3) 🟠 LIB DEM 10% (+1) 🟣 REF UK 13% (+2) 🟢 GRN 5% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3%(-) Dates 11-12/6, N=2037, change on 5-7 both on new methodology
There's definitely a trend this week. Labour down, Tories down but a bit less so, LD up, Ref up. No real trend in Green and SNP slightly recovering in Scottish polls.
Little net change in blocs generally but this one isn't so good for the left. LLG 56 (-3), RefCon 38 (=). Rounding/other +3%.
How the Labour manifesto lands will be the biggest factor next week.
If Labour drop consistently into the 30s while the Lib Dems continue to make gains, it might bring the Lib Dem policy on Europe to the fore and give them another boost from pro-EU voters who are frustrated with Starmer's position.
He has a bit of a point. I’m against Davey’s trivial campaign for slightly different reasons. I just think that elections are serious and shouldn’t be treated like a low rent game show.
I’m also against the volume of polling that is a feature of modern elections. Was chatting to my mother the other day and she was totally bored with the media obsession with the election and how many polls there are, she said they should get the polling companies to appoint the MPs and save everyone the hassle of voting.
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
I don’t think that’s a LibDem policy.
Oddly, the only actual chance of not having VAT on school fees is to vote LD. The Tories can't form the next government. There is a small - maybe 5-10% chance - of NOM, in which case a deal (unlikely to be a coalition after the last time) with the LDs is the only show in town. Such a deal could scupper various Labour plans of the sort not going down well in places posh enough to be LD, including VAT on fees.
Vote Hunt, get Labour; vote LD, get a Labour/LD deal.
BTW Hunt is one of a handful of Tory MPs I would like to see elected. He and his sort will be needed in the One Nation rebuilding after the deluge.
🆕Our latest @moreincommon_@TheNewsAgents voting intention poll finds Labour have a 16 pt lead over the Conservatives 🔵 CON 25% (-2) 🔴 LAB 41% (-3) 🟠 LIB DEM 10% (+1) 🟣 REF UK 13% (+2) 🟢 GRN 5% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3%(-) Dates 11-12/6, N=2037, change on 5-7 both on new methodology
There's definitely a trend this week. Labour down, Tories down but a bit less so, LD up, Ref up. No real trend in Green and SNP slightly recovering in Scottish polls.
Little net change in blocs generally but this one isn't so good for the left. LLG 56 (-3), RefCon 38 (=). Rounding/other +3%.
NOM remains value. NOM wins unless Labour net gains 123 or 124 seats. That's still a lot if a wheel comes off the Labour bus in the next three weeks.
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
Yup! That area isn’t filled with Etons and Harrows, it’s filled with the £15k schools of the sort where the parents forego holidays to pay the fees. I was one of those kids three decades ago. The Hants/Berks/Surrey border towns are all like that, with aspirational parents getting 6am trains to London.
They're aspiring to an early grave with that sort of nonsense.
Spending quality time with their parents would be more in the children's interest than being sent to a posho school where they can learn Grade A arrogance.
(Not saying that's how you turned out, Mr S!)
It’s an area, rather like Edinburgh, where there’s a huge private school population, and therefore likely to be affected more than most by the proposed Labour policy.
On topic, backing Hunt might actually be the value here.
The Tory campaign is clearly being run by the kids that get vox popped on a sugar high at Tory conference in the suits their mums bought them to grow into.
Michael Crick is partisan right-wing Labour of the sort that absolutely loathes the LibDems. He's done some fine journalism in his time and the @TomorrowsMPs feed is invaluable, but he's not exactly an impartial commentator.
Hasn’t he stated that he won’t be voting for Lab this time round? Starmer Lab too right wing even for him apparently..
Gaullists in France, whom the Fifth Republic was constituted to keep in permanent power, are now on 8%, and are hopelessly divided whether to join the semi racist right.
Is this the future of the British Conservative Party?
Its a bit like those weird regular pieces about I earn £100k a year, get free meals at work, but can't afford anything.
Today's one is I earn £45k a year, spend £25k a year on racing cars....does quick maths, take home is ~£35k...i.e. they are claiming to live on £900 a month. Its possible, but would you be spending £25k a year on your hobby if you did? Absolutely bank and mum and dad involved there or very least no Sky Sports for them.
For some people their sob stories just do not add up.
Still nothing will beat that Guardian sob story from 2010 where the bloke argued the cutting of child benefit would stop his kids from receiving piano lessons.
The Guardian have done the Labour voters who have kids at Private School stories too.
Apparently, these parents REALLY, REALLY care about inequality, and poor people, but the thought of their kids actually having to go to school with them doesn't bear thinking about.
They promised to discuss Palestine at the next dinner party they attended. What more could Labour ask of them?
Malmesbury said: "Some years ago, the US Army spent a fortune on a series of programs to design a new super duper rifle. To increase hit rate.
They discovered, almost by accident, during the testing, that the biggest improvement was teaching soldiers to shoot, and giving them practise."
The US Army should have remembered Audie Murphy:
"Audie Leon Murphy (20 June 1925 – 28 May 1971)[1] was an American soldier, actor, and songwriter. He was widely celebrated as the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II,[4] and has been described as the most highly decorated soldier in U.S. history.[5][6] He received every military combat award for valor available from the United States Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. Murphy received the Medal of Honor for valor that he demonstrated at the age of 19 for single-handedly holding off a company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, before leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition.
Murphy was born into a large family of sharecroppers in Hunt County, Texas. After his father abandoned them, his mother died when he was a teenager. Murphy left school in fifth grade to pick cotton and find other work to help support his family; his skill with a hunting rifle helped feed his family." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy
As I understand it, mostly he shot squirrels and rabbits -- which are harder to hit than the "most dangerous game".
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
I don’t think that’s a LibDem policy.
Oddly, the only actual chance of not having VAT on school fees is to vote LD. The Tories can't form the next government. There is a small - maybe 5-10% chance - of NOM, in which case a deal (unlikely to be a coalition after the last time) with the LDs is the only show in town. Such a deal could scupper various Labour plans of the sort not going down well in places posh enough to be LD, including VAT on fees.
Vote Hunt, get Labour; vote LD, get a Labour/LD deal.
BTW Hunt is one of a handful of Tory MPs I would like to see elected. He and his sort will be needed in the One Nation rebuilding after the deluge.
If Hunt is a One Nation Tory he has fallen victim to Stockholm Syndrome, and is just as big a part of the current shit show as the rest of the cabinet.
Its a bit like those weird regular pieces about I earn £100k a year, get free meals at work, but can't afford anything.
Today's one is I earn £45k a year, spend £25k a year on racing cars....does quick maths, take home is ~£35k...i.e. they are claiming to live on £900 a month. Its possible, but would you be spending £25k a year on your hobby if you did? Absolutely bank and mum and dad involved there or very least no Sky Sports for them.
For some people their sob stories just do not add up.
Still nothing will beat that Guardian sob story from 2010 where the bloke argued the cutting of child benefit would stop his kids from receiving piano lessons.
The Guardian have done the Labour voters who have kids at Private School stories too.
Apparently, these parents REALLY, REALLY care about inequality, and poor people, but the thought of their kids actually having to go to school with them doesn't bear thinking about.
They promised to discuss Palestine at the next dinner party they attended. What more could Labour ask of them?
Worried about future Guardian journalists. The thing that would get you an instant ban hammer on Guardian forums was posting a list of the educational background of well known Guardian journos.
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
I don’t think that’s a LibDem policy.
Oddly, the only actual chance of not having VAT on school fees is to vote LD. The Tories can't form the next government. There is a small - maybe 5-10% chance - of NOM, in which case a deal (unlikely to be a coalition after the last time) with the LDs is the only show in town. Such a deal could scupper various Labour plans of the sort not going down well in places posh enough to be LD, including VAT on fees.
Vote Hunt, get Labour; vote LD, get a Labour/LD deal.
BTW Hunt is one of a handful of Tory MPs I would like to see elected. He and his sort will be needed in the One Nation rebuilding after the deluge.
If Hunt is a One Nation Tory he has fallen victim to Stockholm Syndrome, and is just as big a part of the current shit show as the rest of the cabinet.
A sense of duty is very high on One Nation types agenda. That sense of duty is massively underrated at the moment.
The most hilarious thing about this is you can sense the reporter’s under-engineered brain cogs grinding round as he approached: white haired oldie, bound to get some quality SNPbad.
Malmesbury said: "Some years ago, the US Army spent a fortune on a series of programs to design a new super duper rifle. To increase hit rate.
They discovered, almost by accident, during the testing, that the biggest improvement was teaching soldiers to shoot, and giving them practise."
The US Army should have remembered Audie Murphy:
"Audie Leon Murphy (20 June 1925 – 28 May 1971)[1] was an American soldier, actor, and songwriter. He was widely celebrated as the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II,[4] and has been described as the most highly decorated soldier in U.S. history.[5][6] He received every military combat award for valor available from the United States Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. Murphy received the Medal of Honor for valor that he demonstrated at the age of 19 for single-handedly holding off a company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, before leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition.
Murphy was born into a large family of sharecroppers in Hunt County, Texas. After his father abandoned them, his mother died when he was a teenager. Murphy left school in fifth grade to pick cotton and find other work to help support his family; his skill with a hunting rifle helped feed his family." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy
As I understand it, mostly he shot squirrels and rabbits -- which are harder to hit than the "most dangerous game".
Didn't someone grow up bulls-eyeing womp rats with a T-16? Which came in handy later.
Malmesbury said: "Some years ago, the US Army spent a fortune on a series of programs to design a new super duper rifle. To increase hit rate.
They discovered, almost by accident, during the testing, that the biggest improvement was teaching soldiers to shoot, and giving them practise."
The US Army should have remembered Audie Murphy:
"Audie Leon Murphy (20 June 1925 – 28 May 1971)[1] was an American soldier, actor, and songwriter. He was widely celebrated as the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II,[4] and has been described as the most highly decorated soldier in U.S. history.[5][6] He received every military combat award for valor available from the United States Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. Murphy received the Medal of Honor for valor that he demonstrated at the age of 19 for single-handedly holding off a company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, before leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition.
Murphy was born into a large family of sharecroppers in Hunt County, Texas. After his father abandoned them, his mother died when he was a teenager. Murphy left school in fifth grade to pick cotton and find other work to help support his family; his skill with a hunting rifle helped feed his family." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy
As I understand it, mostly he shot squirrels and rabbits -- which are harder to hit than the "most dangerous game".
Sniper originally means someone who can shoot snipe
There's not much point here as the odds of anyone other than Labour winning are not far off Bootle territory.
I don't know if @Dumbosaurus has seen many posters in his part of the seat but nothing at all round my part. Safe labour seat.
Lots of stuff on twitter of Luke Akehurst campaigning and eating his way around North Durham. Little else.
You wouldn't know there was an election on if you didn't know !!!
Lots of Labour and LibDem posters up in Didcot and Wantage, supposedly a safe Tory seat which both parties have as long-shot possibilities. I've yet to see a Tory poster.
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
It is a brand new seat, so he really hasn't had a chance to work it. SW Surrey has been split in two and takes stuff from elsewhere. He has lost Farnham and Bordon, which forms another new seat and gained Ash from Surrey Heath. He only has Godalming from the original seat. He also doesn't benefit from knowing the local politics because Ash is in Guildford Borough whereas most of his old seat was in Waverley. It was surprise he picked this seat and not Farnham and Bordon.
🆕Our latest @moreincommon_@TheNewsAgents voting intention poll finds Labour have a 16 pt lead over the Conservatives 🔵 CON 25% (-2) 🔴 LAB 41% (-3) 🟠 LIB DEM 10% (+1) 🟣 REF UK 13% (+2) 🟢 GRN 5% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3%(-) Dates 11-12/6, N=2037, change on 5-7 both on new methodology
🆕Our latest @moreincommon_@TheNewsAgents voting intention poll finds Labour have a 16 pt lead over the Conservatives 🔵 CON 25% (-2) 🔴 LAB 41% (-3) 🟠 LIB DEM 10% (+1) 🟣 REF UK 13% (+2) 🟢 GRN 5% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3%(-) Dates 11-12/6, N=2037, change on 5-7 both on new methodology
There's definitely a trend this week. Labour down, Tories down but a bit less so, LD up, Ref up. No real trend in Green and SNP slightly recovering in Scottish polls.
Little net change in blocs generally but this one isn't so good for the left. LLG 56 (-3), RefCon 38 (=). Rounding/other +3%.
NOM remains value. NOM wins unless Labour net gains 123 or 124 seats. That's still a lot if a wheel comes off the Labour bus in the next three weeks.
I really don’t think comparisons to 2019 are all that relevant though - there’s no Corbyn and Brexit has happened - even those two factors alone is enough to move the needle sufficiently that isn’t a ‘real’ 124 seat swing we are thinking about here.
Plus as discussed yesterday Labour can still pull a majority off even if they substantially fall given the state of the Tories.
I think the better ‘max Chaos’ bets revolve around the Lib Dems and REFUK.
🆕Our latest @moreincommon_@TheNewsAgents voting intention poll finds Labour have a 16 pt lead over the Conservatives 🔵 CON 25% (-2) 🔴 LAB 41% (-3) 🟠 LIB DEM 10% (+1) 🟣 REF UK 13% (+2) 🟢 GRN 5% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3%(-) Dates 11-12/6, N=2037, change on 5-7 both on new methodology
That looks like Con unchanged, Labour down 5% to me.
Gaullists in France, whom the Fifth Republic was constituted to keep in permanent power, are now on 8%, and are hopelessly divided whether to join the semi racist right.
Is this the future of the British Conservative Party?
I think that the British Conservative Party is more likely to adopt the mantle of nativist politics to head off the risk of being outflanked to its right.
🆕Our latest @moreincommon_@TheNewsAgents voting intention poll finds Labour have a 16 pt lead over the Conservatives 🔵 CON 25% (-2) 🔴 LAB 41% (-3) 🟠 LIB DEM 10% (+1) 🟣 REF UK 13% (+2) 🟢 GRN 5% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3%(-) Dates 11-12/6, N=2037, change on 5-7 both on new methodology
That looks like Con unchanged, Labour down 5% to me.
Methodology changes, this is compared to the last one had it been run under the new method
There's not much point here as the odds of anyone other than Labour winning are not far off Bootle territory.
I don't know if @Dumbosaurus has seen many posters in his part of the seat but nothing at all round my part. Safe labour seat.
Lots of stuff on twitter of Luke Akehurst campaigning and eating his way around North Durham. Little else.
You wouldn't know there was an election on if you didn't know !!!
Lots of Labour and LibDem posters up in Didcot and Wantage, supposedly a safe Tory seat which both parties have as long-shot possibilities. I've yet to see a Tory poster.
One of them needs to back down otherwise the Tory will come through the middle Nick. Can you not forge a deal?
Gaullists in France, whom the Fifth Republic was constituted to keep in permanent power, are now on 8%, and are hopelessly divided whether to join the semi racist right.
Is this the future of the British Conservative Party?
The Gaullists' voters have already shifted over to RN en masse. On current polling, it's hard to see anything other than RN winning a majority.
The Telegraph has gone batshit of late, that article is so off the charts crazy it makes the National Enquirer look like a credible source of news.
It's always been Tory but used to be serious and credible not so long ago. It's been turned into an absolute comicbook.
The things that were broadsheet newspapers aren't broadsheet newspapers any more. Likewise the BBC News. Both media have become sort of gossip columns.
GOP Rep. Andy Ogles said Hunter Biden's conviction provides an opening for Michelle Obama to become the Democratic presidential nominee. Maria Bartiromo agrees.
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
It is a brand new seat, so he really hasn't had a chance to work it. SW Surrey has been split in two and takes stuff from elsewhere. He has lost Farnham and Bordon, which forms another new seat and gained Ash from Surrey Heath. He only has Godalming from the original seat. He also doesn't benefit from knowing the local politics because Ash is in Guildford Borough whereas most of his old seat was in Waverley. It was surprise he picked this seat and not Farnham and Bordon.
Bordon's Army isn't it? Or has the MoD closed the bases down?
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
It is a brand new seat, so he really hasn't had a chance to work it. SW Surrey has been split in two and takes stuff from elsewhere. He has lost Farnham and Bordon, which forms another new seat and gained Ash from Surrey Heath. He only has Godalming from the original seat. He also doesn't benefit from knowing the local politics because Ash is in Guildford Borough whereas most of his old seat was in Waverley. It was surprise he picked this seat and not Farnham and Bordon.
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
I don’t think that’s a LibDem policy.
Oddly, the only actual chance of not having VAT on school fees is to vote LD. The Tories can't form the next government. There is a small - maybe 5-10% chance - of NOM, in which case a deal (unlikely to be a coalition after the last time) with the LDs is the only show in town. Such a deal could scupper various Labour plans of the sort not going down well in places posh enough to be LD, including VAT on fees.
Vote Hunt, get Labour; vote LD, get a Labour/LD deal.
BTW Hunt is one of a handful of Tory MPs I would like to see elected. He and his sort will be needed in the One Nation rebuilding after the deluge.
Is the Tory party about to respond to a crushing defeat with a pivot to pragmatic centrism? Not convinced.
This bit in particular suggests it's not all hot air, even if the language is overly florid:
Review, Repurpose, Retrain or Retire Capabilities As the nature of defence and deterrence evolves, so must the arsenal of capabilities. As resources and funding will always be limited, choices may need to be made as to which capabilities should be deprioritised* if they cannot be repurposed. Advances in technology will accelerate the need for focus and prioritisation, with emerging technology rendering more existing capabilities redundant over time. Identifying and reducing support for these capabilities will be key. Furthermore, rather than trying to maintain every defence capability and often doing so insufficiently well, the UK must focus on delivering key capabilities effectively...
...There is evidence to suggest that neither the government nor the armed forces are currently taking these kinds of decisions. Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee found a £16.9 billion deficit between the MoD’s stated capability requirements and its budget, warning that “the MoD has not had the discipline to balance its budget by making the difficult choices about which operational activities to curtail and which equipment programmes it can and cannot afford”. Similarly, experts have warned of cultural barriers to this kind of prioritisation within the armed forces, with some senior leaders concerned that winding down certain capabilities jeopardises the perception of our armed forces as a tier-one fighting power...
* I think they mean cut.
Genuinely interesting. As with space exloration, the future of the military is going be defined by who is quick and nimble and cheap, rather than those spending billions on decade-long programs designed to fight the last war.
Meanwhile, have another video of a small Ukranian drone with a grenade on board, $2k tops, taking out a Russian tank.
Many of those drone hits are one tanks that have already been disabled and/or abandoned by the their crews.
And not a few aren't. Drone payloads extend well beyond grenades.
MBTs are a good example of a capability we really don't need for our defence - somewhere like Poland will of course calculate differently.
But Challenger III should be scrapped as far as the British army is concerned. The army will scream, but it should be told to go away and think about what capabilities are actually useful - and might be used in the next decade - for the defence of these islands.
This bit in particular suggests it's not all hot air, even if the language is overly florid:
Review, Repurpose, Retrain or Retire Capabilities As the nature of defence and deterrence evolves, so must the arsenal of capabilities. As resources and funding will always be limited, choices may need to be made as to which capabilities should be deprioritised* if they cannot be repurposed. Advances in technology will accelerate the need for focus and prioritisation, with emerging technology rendering more existing capabilities redundant over time. Identifying and reducing support for these capabilities will be key. Furthermore, rather than trying to maintain every defence capability and often doing so insufficiently well, the UK must focus on delivering key capabilities effectively...
...There is evidence to suggest that neither the government nor the armed forces are currently taking these kinds of decisions. Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee found a £16.9 billion deficit between the MoD’s stated capability requirements and its budget, warning that “the MoD has not had the discipline to balance its budget by making the difficult choices about which operational activities to curtail and which equipment programmes it can and cannot afford”. Similarly, experts have warned of cultural barriers to this kind of prioritisation within the armed forces, with some senior leaders concerned that winding down certain capabilities jeopardises the perception of our armed forces as a tier-one fighting power...
* I think they mean cut.
Genuinely interesting. As with space exloration, the future of the military is going be defined by who is quick and nimble and cheap, rather than those spending billions on decade-long programs designed to fight the last war.
Meanwhile, have another video of a small Ukranian drone with a grenade on board, $2k tops, taking out a Russian tank.
Two drones, each carrying an explosive (an artillery shell) can take out an Abrams. One to immobilise it by taking out the track. Another to explode the shells in the rear turret semi-autoloader.
Two drones. An Abrams. The best tank in history defeated by Xmas presents for your nephew.
Thinking again about the Hartlepool constituency poll yesterday.
LAB 58 REF 23 CON 10 LD 6 GREEN 2
In an election with some crazy 3 and 4 way battles… Can constituency polls tell us more than ever?
Reform pulling in 23 here tells me they might be competitive in more seats than people are currently thinking… am I wrong?
Light years behind Labour in a seat that would be expected to be one of the more receptive to their pitch. Chimes with the assumption that Reform has too low a ceiling of support to make serious headway under FPTP.
Up to 38% tarrifs on BYD and MG electric cars into EU customs zone.
Everyone in favour of Net Zero, should understand what a massive Brexit benefit we have in the UK not introducing these tarrifs.
Although the UK has less of a motor manufacturing industry to protect than the EU I doubt it will want to be the sole major car market to be targeted by excess Chinese manufacture.
Thinking again about the Hartlepool constituency poll yesterday.
LAB 58 REF 23 CON 10 LD 6 GREEN 2
In an election with some crazy 3 and 4 way battles… Can constituency polls tell us more than ever?
Reform pulling in 23 here tells me they might be competitive in more seats than people are currently thinking… am I wrong?
Hartlepool was BXPs third best seat in 2019, if anything at 35 points adrift this suggests they won't be competitive anywhere. If they are really on 15 plus nationally they should be storming into the 30s here
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
I don’t think that’s a LibDem policy.
Oddly, the only actual chance of not having VAT on school fees is to vote LD. The Tories can't form the next government. There is a small - maybe 5-10% chance - of NOM, in which case a deal (unlikely to be a coalition after the last time) with the LDs is the only show in town. Such a deal could scupper various Labour plans of the sort not going down well in places posh enough to be LD, including VAT on fees.
Vote Hunt, get Labour; vote LD, get a Labour/LD deal.
BTW Hunt is one of a handful of Tory MPs I would like to see elected. He and his sort will be needed in the One Nation rebuilding after the deluge.
Is the Tory party about to respond to a crushing defeat with a pivot to pragmatic centrism? Not convinced.
Well it also might not run straight into the throttling hands of Big Nige. They may find a different path, that eschews centrism and populist nativism.
Thinking again about the Hartlepool constituency poll yesterday.
LAB 58 REF 23 CON 10 LD 6 GREEN 2
In an election with some crazy 3 and 4 way battles… Can constituency polls tell us more than ever?
Reform pulling in 23 here tells me they might be competitive in more seats than people are currently thinking… am I wrong?
Why do you think that? They got 26% in Hartlepool in 2019, albeit admittedly with Tice as candidate. It's exactly the sort of seat where they should do well... and the poll suggests they are doing okay but are in no way competitive. Pulling in 20% in a load of places while someone else is easily on twice that is the opposite of being competitive.
Thinking again about the Hartlepool constituency poll yesterday.
LAB 58 REF 23 CON 10 LD 6 GREEN 2
In an election with some crazy 3 and 4 way battles… Can constituency polls tell us more than ever?
Reform pulling in 23 here tells me they might be competitive in more seats than people are currently thinking… am I wrong?
The contrast with Marine Le Pen on the cusp of national power in France highlights how their UK equivalents have completely failed to build up the same broad-based ground organisation that she has managed to create. They ought to be able to make FPTP work for them but so far haven't been serious enough about it.
This bit in particular suggests it's not all hot air, even if the language is overly florid:
Review, Repurpose, Retrain or Retire Capabilities As the nature of defence and deterrence evolves, so must the arsenal of capabilities. As resources and funding will always be limited, choices may need to be made as to which capabilities should be deprioritised* if they cannot be repurposed. Advances in technology will accelerate the need for focus and prioritisation, with emerging technology rendering more existing capabilities redundant over time. Identifying and reducing support for these capabilities will be key. Furthermore, rather than trying to maintain every defence capability and often doing so insufficiently well, the UK must focus on delivering key capabilities effectively...
...There is evidence to suggest that neither the government nor the armed forces are currently taking these kinds of decisions. Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee found a £16.9 billion deficit between the MoD’s stated capability requirements and its budget, warning that “the MoD has not had the discipline to balance its budget by making the difficult choices about which operational activities to curtail and which equipment programmes it can and cannot afford”. Similarly, experts have warned of cultural barriers to this kind of prioritisation within the armed forces, with some senior leaders concerned that winding down certain capabilities jeopardises the perception of our armed forces as a tier-one fighting power...
* I think they mean cut.
Genuinely interesting. As with space exloration, the future of the military is going be defined by who is quick and nimble and cheap, rather than those spending billions on decade-long programs designed to fight the last war.
Meanwhile, have another video of a small Ukranian drone with a grenade on board, $2k tops, taking out a Russian tank.
Many of those drone hits are one tanks that have already been disabled and/or abandoned by the their crews.
And not a few aren't. Drone payloads extend well beyond grenades.
MBTs are a good example of a capability we really don't need for our defence - somewhere like Poland will of course calculate differently.
But Challenger III should be scrapped as far as the British army is concerned. The army will scream, but it should be told to go away and think about what capabilities are actually useful - and might be used in the next decade - for the defence of these islands.
Britain is one of the larger countries in NATO, so I'd have thought we would have some tanks and be able to field some armoured units, even if our core competency is in the sea and air.
This bit in particular suggests it's not all hot air, even if the language is overly florid:
Review, Repurpose, Retrain or Retire Capabilities As the nature of defence and deterrence evolves, so must the arsenal of capabilities. As resources and funding will always be limited, choices may need to be made as to which capabilities should be deprioritised* if they cannot be repurposed. Advances in technology will accelerate the need for focus and prioritisation, with emerging technology rendering more existing capabilities redundant over time. Identifying and reducing support for these capabilities will be key. Furthermore, rather than trying to maintain every defence capability and often doing so insufficiently well, the UK must focus on delivering key capabilities effectively...
...There is evidence to suggest that neither the government nor the armed forces are currently taking these kinds of decisions. Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee found a £16.9 billion deficit between the MoD’s stated capability requirements and its budget, warning that “the MoD has not had the discipline to balance its budget by making the difficult choices about which operational activities to curtail and which equipment programmes it can and cannot afford”. Similarly, experts have warned of cultural barriers to this kind of prioritisation within the armed forces, with some senior leaders concerned that winding down certain capabilities jeopardises the perception of our armed forces as a tier-one fighting power...
* I think they mean cut.
Genuinely interesting. As with space exloration, the future of the military is going be defined by who is quick and nimble and cheap, rather than those spending billions on decade-long programs designed to fight the last war.
Meanwhile, have another video of a small Ukranian drone with a grenade on board, $2k tops, taking out a Russian tank.
Many of those drone hits are one tanks that have already been disabled and/or abandoned by the their crews.
And not a few aren't. Drone payloads extend well beyond grenades.
MBTs are a good example of a capability we really don't need for our defence - somewhere like Poland will of course calculate differently.
But Challenger III should be scrapped as far as the British army is concerned. The army will scream, but it should be told to go away and think about what capabilities are actually useful - and might be used in the next decade - for the defence of these islands.
That's utterly wrong IMO. The best place to defend our country is outside our country: and that means we need a land force capable of working alongside our friends. And whilst I acknowledge the number of CIII's is going to be farcically low, they will keep an institutional knowledge of tank warfare going. Once such knowledge is lost, it is not easy to regain.
Malmesbury said: "Some years ago, the US Army spent a fortune on a series of programs to design a new super duper rifle. To increase hit rate.
They discovered, almost by accident, during the testing, that the biggest improvement was teaching soldiers to shoot, and giving them practise."
The US Army should have remembered Audie Murphy:
"Audie Leon Murphy (20 June 1925 – 28 May 1971)[1] was an American soldier, actor, and songwriter. He was widely celebrated as the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II,[4] and has been described as the most highly decorated soldier in U.S. history.[5][6] He received every military combat award for valor available from the United States Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. Murphy received the Medal of Honor for valor that he demonstrated at the age of 19 for single-handedly holding off a company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, before leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition.
Murphy was born into a large family of sharecroppers in Hunt County, Texas. After his father abandoned them, his mother died when he was a teenager. Murphy left school in fifth grade to pick cotton and find other work to help support his family; his skill with a hunting rifle helped feed his family." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy
As I understand it, mostly he shot squirrels and rabbits -- which are harder to hit than the "most dangerous game".
Major incentive to accurate shooting IF you go hungry IF you miss too often.
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
It is a brand new seat, so he really hasn't had a chance to work it. SW Surrey has been split in two and takes stuff from elsewhere. He has lost Farnham and Bordon, which forms another new seat and gained Ash from Surrey Heath. He only has Godalming from the original seat. He also doesn't benefit from knowing the local politics because Ash is in Guildford Borough whereas most of his old seat was in Waverley. It was surprise he picked this seat and not Farnham and Bordon.
I think he is emotionally invested in Godalming.
I don't know, but that would make sense. @NickPalmer would likely know.
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
The LibDems don’t support the VAT on schools.
The 1500 is his attempt to hold back the tide. The reality I’m hearing is worse and that he’s in big trouble. LibDems are pouring in resources and when you see that happening you’d be unwise to bet against.
On YouGov's 38% figure for Labour, I do find it tricky to see Labour falling below 40% on GE day, for the following reasoning.
They got 33% in 2019 and the net effect of death, first time voters (turned 18 or newly qualified to vote), and new abstainers can be estimated to boost Labour by about 2.5%.
So they are around 35.5% before net switchers, either from other parties or net gain from 2019 DNV (a good few of which will have been Labour hand sitters). They don't need that many switchers to hit 40% and, well, I think they surely have those numbers.
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
It is a brand new seat, so he really hasn't had a chance to work it. SW Surrey has been split in two and takes stuff from elsewhere. He has lost Farnham and Bordon, which forms another new seat and gained Ash from Surrey Heath. He only has Godalming from the original seat. He also doesn't benefit from knowing the local politics because Ash is in Guildford Borough whereas most of his old seat was in Waverley. It was surprise he picked this seat and not Farnham and Bordon.
If he was astute he might prefer only retainining his seat if the Conservative party as a whole had a reasonable result, in which case he would be better off taking on the harder seat to win.
🆕Our latest @moreincommon_@TheNewsAgents voting intention poll finds Labour have a 16 pt lead over the Conservatives 🔵 CON 25% (-2) 🔴 LAB 41% (-3) 🟠 LIB DEM 10% (+1) 🟣 REF UK 13% (+2) 🟢 GRN 5% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3%(-) Dates 11-12/6, N=2037, change on 5-7 both on new methodology
There's definitely a trend this week. Labour down, Tories down but a bit less so, LD up, Ref up. No real trend in Green and SNP slightly recovering in Scottish polls.
Little net change in blocs generally but this one isn't so good for the left. LLG 56 (-3), RefCon 38 (=). Rounding/other +3%.
NOM remains value. NOM wins unless Labour net gains 123 or 124 seats. That's still a lot if a wheel comes off the Labour bus in the next three weeks.
There's a huge amount of skepticism out there in voterland about Labour's offer of recharging dentistry and NHS appointments from currently unfound due taxes. As somebody said to me today: "Firstly you have to hire the people to find this tax. Then you have to train them. It'll be six years before it shows any profit...."
The general tone I'm hearing is everyone is lying to them - all will have to put up taxes. Significantly. But Labour's offer is an order of magnitude adrift of reality.
He knows the seat well, works it hard and his sort of brand of Conservatism is well suited to it.
Private schools tax hasn't gone down well there. And there are lots about.
Yup! That area isn’t filled with Etons and Harrows, it’s filled with the £15k schools of the sort where the parents forego holidays to pay the fees. I was one of those kids three decades ago. The Hants/Berks/Surrey border towns are all like that, with aspirational parents getting 6am trains to London.
They're aspiring to an early grave with that sort of nonsense.
Spending quality time with their parents would be more in the children's interest than being sent to a posho school where they can learn Grade A arrogance.
(Not saying that's how you turned out, Mr S!)
Yeah the parents who will do anything for their kids other than spending time with them are baffling to me.
"‘Our generation has suffered incredible hardship’: Meet Labour’s Gen Z wannabe MPs As a new generation prepares to make its political debut in the general election, we hear from some of Starmer’s newest party hopefuls Lauren Shirreff"
Comments
Incidentally - I wonder how long it will be before DJI gets banned in various countries?
Another market stitched up by the Chinese government.
In contrast, Balls-Osborne, while they have little good to say about the current Government, have a frisson of partisanship that fuels interesting discussion about, as you say, the political merits and implications of the parties' positions on various issues. It's a much more political discussion.
Keir Starmer’s looming reforms force mothers to take on the burden of childcare
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/jobs/schools-universities/labour-private-school-vat-give-up-nhs-doctor-career/
Two drones. An Abrams. The best tank in history defeated by Xmas presents for your nephew.
He was a high-scoring Hall of Fame guard for the Lakers and later an executive with the team. His image became the N.B.A.’s logo.
Jerry West, who emerged from West Virginia coal country to become one of basketball’s greatest players, a signature figure in the history of the Los Angeles Lakers and a literal icon of the sport — his is the silhouette on the logo of the National Basketball Association, died on Wednesday. He was 86. . . .
The 1971-72 Lakers won 69 games, a record at the time . . . including a still unequaled streak of 33 in a row. When they avenged their loss to the Knicks, winning the 1972 championship, West spoke after the last game with a colossal sense of relief . . . In 1958, his junior year at West Virginia University, his team made it to the national finals against California, only to lose by a single point.
“The last time I won a championship was in the 12th grade,” West said after he scored 23 points as the Lakers beat the Knicks 114-100 to capture the series in five games.
As the Lakers general manager, West succeeded more often. He led a team that included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and James Worthy to a championship in 1985 — at last sweet revenge against the Celtics — and again in 1987 and 1988. . . .
He was probably best known . . . for excelling in tough situations and big games, for wanting the ball when the game was in the balance, and for making shots under pressure. . . .
In 2000, as executive vice-president (his role was as a super-general manager, with the authority over personnel), he won again, having brought aboard Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. West left the Lakers after that season, but the team built largely on his watch won two more championships in a row. . .
SSI - Flags now hanging at half-staff across West Virginia for the boy from Cabin Creek. And perhaps in parts of Lithuania and Los Angeles County as well.
The party has pledged to end the VAT exemption for independent schools, which could add 20pc to fees as early as September.
Sir Keir Starmer has promised to spend the £1.7bn he claims the policy will raise on recruiting 6,500 new state school teachers.
However, David Boddy, chair of ASIS, a business consultancy for the education sector, said he had spoken to parents “with tears in their eyes”, many of whom had decided to take out large loans to provide a buffer against rising fees.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/mortgages/labour-private-school-tax-raid-forcing-parents-remortgage/
Today's one is I earn £45k a year, spend £25k a year on racing cars....does quick maths, take home is ~£35k...i.e. they are claiming to live on £900 a month. Its possible, but would you be spending £25k a year on your hobby if you did? Absolutely bank and mum and dad involved there or very least no Sky Sports for them.
That Soviet-era tanks, and their Russian successors, all have a fatal flaw in how they store ammunition, is merely a large bonus at this point. The Russian tanks are getting their turrets blown off and everything inside totally cooked, whereas the Western tanks taking hits are mostly being recovered for repair.
He could earn more money as a driving instructor at the racecar school, which is what I assumed his job was from the headline, helping a wunch of bankers qualify for their dream of racing at Le Mans this weekend.
We have one child in private secondary school and one in state primary. Why the private school? Why indeed. We were seduced by the gleaming facilities and impressive open days. If we couldn't afford the school fees we would move our eldest to a state school without a second thought.
👀
a 46-year-old man has been arrested at his home in Barnet, north London, as part of a criminal investigation into suspected offences committed in the procurement of contracts for personal protective equipment by the company PPE Medpro
https://x.com/PickardJE/status/1800906976416976969
🔵 CON 25% (-2)
🔴 LAB 41% (-3)
🟠 LIB DEM 10% (+1)
🟣 REF UK 13% (+2)
🟢 GRN 5% (-1)
🟡 SNP 3%(-)
Dates 11-12/6, N=2037, change on 5-7 both on new methodology
Still nothing will beat that Guardian sob story from 2010 where the bloke argued the cutting of child benefit would stop his kids from receiving piano lessons.
The country is in a hell of a mess , public services are imploding so for most this private school issue leaves many thinking meh!
https://x.com/BBCPolitics/status/1800886939614146893
https://x.com/michaellcrick/status/1800876054078185491
Give me one good reason why I shouldn't win
Ed Davey, SED
Ed Davey, SED
Hard to maintain support for a party that flip flops all over the place creating havoc.
Spending quality time with their parents would be more in the children's interest than being sent to a posho school where they can learn Grade A arrogance.
(Not saying that's how you turned out, Mr S!)
Little net change in blocs generally but this one isn't so good for the left. LLG 56 (-3), RefCon 38 (=). Rounding/other +3%.
Speaking of postal matters, in Ireland one of the newly-elected local councillors is Honore Kamegni for the Greens, originally from Cameron and the first Black on Cork City council.
According to RTE, Kamegni
worked for An Post for the past 16 years and spent 14 of those as a postman in Douglas and Rochestown.
Well used to going door to door, Mr Kamegni said that he "knocked at 15,000 doors from the rural to the city and everyone was very, very encouraging".
"I think the people of Cork city electing me shows that they reject all the hatred, all the hostility that's going on online, I think we are one," Mr Kamegni said.
SSI - As I've said previously PB's village postie, Blanchelivermore would be a superior candidate on the ground, for whatever office he wanted to run for IF he wanted to run for one at all.
Certainly on his accustomed turf, but methinks he could do the same in a brand-new patch from a standing start.
Hopefully they will publish the full tables so we can see what's what.
I don't know how much of the moves could just be rounding - after all 43.6 to 41.4 is down 2.2 but with rounding it's down three. Again, hopefully some full data tables will help.
If Labour drop consistently into the 30s while the Lib Dems continue to make gains, it might bring the Lib Dem policy on Europe to the fore and give them another boost from pro-EU voters who are frustrated with Starmer's position.
I’m also against the volume of polling that is a feature of modern elections. Was chatting to my mother the other day and she was totally bored with the media obsession with the election and how many polls there are, she said they should get the polling companies to appoint the MPs and save everyone the hassle of voting.
Exclusive: Ten Hag’s current contract will be superseded by another two-year deal, meaning he will have three years left to run
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/06/12/erik-ten-hag-expected-sign-new-two-year-man-utd-contract/
Vote Hunt, get Labour; vote LD, get a Labour/LD deal.
BTW Hunt is one of a handful of Tory MPs I would like to see elected. He and his sort will be needed in the One Nation rebuilding after the deluge.
The exciting adventures of Percy the tax Pig continue
On topic, backing Hunt might actually be the value here.
Is this the future of the British Conservative Party?
Apparently, these parents REALLY, REALLY care about inequality, and poor people, but the thought of their kids actually having to go to school with them doesn't bear thinking about.
They promised to discuss Palestine at the next dinner party they attended. What more could Labour ask of them?
They discovered, almost by accident, during the testing, that the biggest improvement was teaching soldiers to shoot, and giving them practise."
The US Army should have remembered Audie Murphy:
"Audie Leon Murphy (20 June 1925 – 28 May 1971)[1] was an American soldier, actor, and songwriter. He was widely celebrated as the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II,[4] and has been described as the most highly decorated soldier in U.S. history.[5][6] He received every military combat award for valor available from the United States Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. Murphy received the Medal of Honor for valor that he demonstrated at the age of 19 for single-handedly holding off a company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, before leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition.
Murphy was born into a large family of sharecroppers in Hunt County, Texas. After his father abandoned them, his mother died when he was a teenager. Murphy left school in fifth grade to pick cotton and find other work to help support his family; his skill with a hunting rifle helped feed his family."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy
As I understand it, mostly he shot squirrels and rabbits -- which are harder to hit than the "most dangerous game".
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/06/12/brussels-slap-multibillion-euro-tariffs-chinese-evs/
Up to 38% tarrifs on BYD and MG electric cars into EU customs zone.
Everyone in favour of Net Zero, should understand what a massive Brexit benefit we have in the UK not introducing these tarrifs.
https://x.com/robdunsmore/status/1800890974698459504?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Which came in handy later.
The Tories do like a cartoon pig.
Plus as discussed yesterday Labour can still pull a majority off even if they substantially fall given the state of the Tories.
I think the better ‘max Chaos’ bets revolve around the Lib Dems and REFUK.
GOP Rep. Andy Ogles said Hunter Biden's conviction provides an opening for Michelle Obama to become the Democratic presidential nominee. Maria Bartiromo agrees.
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1800901949958537220
LAB 58
REF 23
CON 10
LD 6
GREEN 2
In an election with some crazy 3 and 4 way battles… Can constituency polls tell us more than ever?
Reform pulling in 23 here tells me they might be competitive in more seats than people are currently thinking… am I wrong?
Drone payloads extend well beyond grenades.
MBTs are a good example of a capability we really don't need for our defence - somewhere like Poland will of course calculate differently.
But Challenger III should be scrapped as far as the British army is concerned. The army will scream, but it should be told to go away and think about what capabilities are actually useful - and might be used in the next decade - for the defence of these islands.
Expect the UK to follow suit with new tariffs.
If they are really on 15 plus nationally they should be storming into the 30s here
The 1500 is his attempt to hold back the tide. The reality I’m hearing is worse and that he’s in big trouble. LibDems are pouring in resources and when you see that happening you’d be unwise to bet against.
They got 33% in 2019 and the net effect of death, first time voters (turned 18 or newly qualified to vote), and new abstainers can be estimated to boost Labour by about 2.5%.
So they are around 35.5% before net switchers, either from other parties or net gain from 2019 DNV (a good few of which will have been Labour hand sitters). They don't need
that many switchers to hit 40% and, well, I think they surely have those numbers.
The general tone I'm hearing is everyone is lying to them - all will have to put up taxes. Significantly. But Labour's offer is an order of magnitude adrift of reality.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/12/labour-mps-gen-z-general-election-2024/
"‘Our generation has suffered incredible hardship’: Meet Labour’s Gen Z wannabe MPs
As a new generation prepares to make its political debut in the general election, we hear from some of Starmer’s newest party hopefuls
Lauren Shirreff"