Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I am not running to be PM, nor is the fat bloke in the England team. That is the job they are highly paid for.
I also never said Starmer was thick but he is clearly not going to be in the top rank of our PMs by intelligence. Intelligence isn't the be all and end all for PMs, judgement, empathy and competence matters too but it helps
You define intelligence by A level results 35 years ago? Even worse than IQ testing.
Very true. Look at our Leon; he was thrown out of school for making stuff up, with just a swimming certificate by way of paper qualifications, and now he has an IQ of 6000.
I went to a big standard comprehensive and became an alcoholic at the age of 17. Somehow I got an offer of two Es from UCL so I swanned in nonetheless. Once there I did zero work concentrating on drugs girls and parties and after that I became a heroin addict for another 15 years nearly dying many times. I’ve never done a proper day’s work in my life and here I am sitting in a sun drenched garden on the island of ushant drinking free muscadet where I am being PAID to have a lovely holiday on all the islands of Brittany because this is my second job - my first job which takes an hour a day earns me more than the prime minister thus giving me plenty of time to remember the 100 countries I’ve visited and the approximately 300 young women I have fucked and the tax bill I got one year for £300,000
Imagine what I could have done if I’d worked hard like you
Been happy?
Overrated, happiness. You get nothing done
Tho actually I am seriously happy right now sitting here in the sun drinking free wine on Ushant
Na, if you were happy, you wouldn't feel the need to boast to complete strangers. I have to say you do provide a most interesting psychological study.
I think that's wrong, in my experience. Happiness leads to wanting to tell everyone all about it, even your imaginary friends on the internet. Misery, you tend to retreat more into silence.
Well quite. Also I enjoy the “local pub” aspect of PB when I am abroad. We have often discussed this
I am very open about my emotions on this site. During lockdown 3 I was probably at the lowest point of my life - totally alone, my beautiful young wife had left me, stuck in a 1 bed flat during that terrible terrible winter - I was very close to suicide indeed I essentially attempted it a couple of times - driving at 140mph on UK A roads etc
I think PB was one reason I am still here and happy on a Breton island. And I am grateful for that
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I am not running to be PM, nor is the fat bloke in the England team. That is the job they are highly paid for.
I also never said Starmer was thick but he is clearly not going to be in the top rank of our PMs by intelligence. Intelligence isn't the be all and end all for PMs, judgement, empathy and competence matters too but it helps
You define intelligence by A level results 35 years ago? Even worse than IQ testing.
Very true. Look at our Leon; he was thrown out of school for making stuff up, with just a swimming certificate by way of paper qualifications, and now he has an IQ of 6000.
I went to a big standard comprehensive and became an alcoholic at the age of 17. Somehow I got an offer of two Es from UCL so I swanned in nonetheless. Once there I did zero work concentrating on drugs girls and parties and after that I became a heroin addict for another 15 years nearly dying many times. I’ve never done a proper day’s work in my life and here I am sitting in a sun drenched garden on the island of ushant drinking free muscadet where I am being PAID to have a lovely holiday on all the islands of Brittany because this is my second job - my first job which takes an hour a day earns me more than the prime minister thus giving me plenty of time to remember the 100 countries I’ve visited and the approximately 300 young women I have fucked and the tax bill I got one year for £300,000
Imagine what I could have done if I’d worked hard like you
Been happy?
Overrated, happiness. You get nothing done
Tho actually I am seriously happy right now sitting here in the sun drinking free wine on Ushant
Na, if you were happy, you wouldn't feel the need to boast to complete strangers. I have to say you do provide a most interesting psychological study.
I think that's wrong, in my experience. Happiness leads to wanting to tell everyone all about it, even your imaginary friends on the internet. Misery, you tend to retreat more into silence.
Not sure I agree. People who are happy and of a boastful nature tend to boast to friends on FB. People are not happy feel the need to boast to people who don't really know them. It is safer as they can't be fact checked.
Anyway at risk of you thinking I am retreating into silence, it is time to go for a walk with dog and then go to pub!
Omg this poll is in line with pp Lab: 38% Ref: 21% Con: 18% LD: 11%
No idea if the Daily Express pollster is any good.
But Baxtered it gives something like
LABOUR 453 LD 74 CON 50 REF 29 (!) GREEN 3 SNP 18
The Tories have voters everywhere. Reform have voters everywhere. Reform are relatively unpopular in Scotland (8%), London, and fairly unpopular in the leafy shires. All those places probably have more Tories living in them as a percentage of their voter tallies than Reform do. So where does the inefficiency of the Reform vote lie? Where are they stacking up all these voters in unwinnable seats to beat the Tories soundly but still lose so heavily on seat count? Yes the Tories have ground game and incumbency, but that would surely be accounted for in the topline figures? Surely the RefUK vote actually has the potential to be quite efficient?
Yes I don't understand how the Reform vote is more inefficient than the tory one? Perhaps REFORM are building up votes in very safe Labour seats in the north especially in the North East.
We will know at about 11pm on Thursday when Sunderland South result is up.
I think Bridget Philipsson will help them be okay there. However Washington and Gateshead South might have more of a chance. If that goes to Reform early on, I could very well see people panicking on the Exchange etc.
Not expecting Reform to win Sunderland South, but if a large storm is inccoming, Reform second place and how much they squeeze Labours majority is going to be the distant flashes of lightning on the horizon as the breeze starts to pick up.
It was is very interesting to hear how much leg Sir Kier 'Send the Bangladeshis home' Starmer is flashing in the direction of perceived Reform voters at the moment - perhaps their private polling is telling them that their position in the red wall isn't as safe as they'd like to think. There's definitely more Tory vote for Reform to squeeze, and Labour voters aren't that convinced either.
The problem with Bangladeshgate, is that if 3/5th of 2019 voters have broken for reform and 1/5 for Labour as @rcs1000 suggests, Labour will win, providing a trance of their core voters don't vote for Gorgeous George which Bangladeshgate might ensure.
The Reform UK vote inefficiency will arise because first, 30% doesn't yield a much better probability of winning a seat than 10%. Second, the seats you win on 30% tend to have multiple rivals close to your vote, so your seats are vulnerable to two-party swings between your close rivals that have nothing to do with you. Finally, if the vote distribution is similar to Ukip in 2015, then even on 20% in England and Wales, they would only exceed 30% in a few dozen seats.
The Lib Dem standard deviation for their vote is extraordinarily high. If you're a minor party (Everyone but Labour at the moment lol) then a humongous variation on your vote from seat to seat is what you want.
"On Wednesday Green was mainly canvassing previous Conservative and swing voters in Blackrod, a small commuter town with sweeping countryside views. Most of those who answered the door stated that they were undecided or would not be voting at all. “You haven’t got mine,” replied painter and decorator James Mullen, 73, when Green asked if he could count on his vote. “It’s all this betting.”
He recounted in disgust the scandal that has hit the Conservatives over the past fortnight, in which 12 individuals — including Tory candidates, party officials and police officers — have been placed under investigation over bets they placed on an early election date. "
Possibly the worst decision this court has made, and heaven knows it's been a utter shitshow since Trump's appointments. It's an enormous power grab by the Court at the expense of Congress, and demonstrates a contempt for the stare decisis doctrine that is deeper than the Dodds decision.
Kagan's dissent is well argued, and appropriately scathing. She made a point of reading it from the bench.
I must say that the idea of deference to a regulator by the court as to what a law means does seem an odd concept. Our courts will show deference to expert Tribunals regulating particular areas but not to the regulator itself.
The problem with the American system is that their courts seem a long way from impartial arbiter of our courts and they also, of course, have the power to strike down so much regulation and indeed legislation. This gives the courts more power than the politicians in many respects. When you have a partisan court, such as now, that is a real problem.
It strikes me the UK election is the final hurrah, the last supper, the stag or hen do, for the social democratic and liberal ascendency in the West. The exception that proves the rule.
A populist right wing party is about to be kicked out of office in potentially spectacular style (don’t @ me, they are populist right wing: heavy on the divisive rhetoric, light on policy, economically centrist, elements of statism, classic populist - see Orban, Erdogan, Putin etc).
The rest of the West is going into its populist phase. America is getting Trump back. He may well fix the system so his people are in forever. Le Pen’s people are going to be running France. India is already captured, Germany is rediscovering its fashy heritage. But here in Britain we have a few years of Keir before PM Farage in 2029. Meanwhile the world’s burning up and China’s deciding when to press the Taiwan button.
So we should embrace it, right and left. Celebrate the fin de siècle before the decent into hell and the possible nuclear holocaust.
I am considering an ultra woke fancy dress party for election night, celebrating our short lived supremacy before the republic of Gilead descends.
Labour on Course to Win 470 Seats and Become the Largest Party in Scotland.
Probabilistic seat count:
LAB 470 CON 85 LD 56 SNP 12 RFM 4 PC 3 GRN 2
23,364 interviews conducted online and on the telephone Fwk 15th - 27th June
I’m actually starting to feel the pang of disappointment when MRPs don’t have the Lib Dems as official opposition.
Another reason we shouldn’t have opinion polls. If we didn’t, non-Tories would be praying for a reduced Conservative majority or, in their dreams, even a hung parliament.
I don't think these attacks on Reform will work. The aim is to try and destroy them by revealing their 'true nature' but it just keeps getting shrugged off by Farage. So the attacks fail, and the by product is that the discourse is normalised. It feels like the overton window shifting.
Yes. There is a fashion on TikTok for young kids in France and Germany to say “yeah I’m a racist so fucking what”
The term has lost a lot of its negative power through overuse and now it has a kind of mildly transgressive chic - which kids love of course. That’s how you shock the elders these days. Say “yeah I’m a racist” on TikTok. Cue heart attack in your parents
Saying “fuck the toreeez” and going to Glastonbury is what people like @Heathener do
Again I don’t believe Britain will be immune from this trend, we are merely behind the curve
Is Britain ahead, behind or on a totally different curve? Time will tell. Brexit and Johnson gave the populist mad right wing nonsense thing a bad name with anyone under 50
My thinking is Brexit has delayed our swerve to the populist right - but not necessarily averted it. We gave people the vote and they vented their anger - that has bought us time
With that time we need to see a proper right wing government emerge that will actually do proper right wing things. Then maybe we can dodge the whole Le Pen shit altogether -
But if that doesn’t happen then it seems inevitable to me that we will follow Italy France Sweden the USA Holland etc
I agree with your basic premise, it’s just that I don’t think they want right wing polices so much as a Government that does what it is told to.
Brexit was a cry of frustration because nobody ever listened to the public saying they wanted to go no further. And then they got disenchanted that it still didn’t happen, and we got 2019.
But I think it has led to volatility meaning Starmer isn’t guaranteed his second term, and the Tories aren’t guaranteed to replace him.
Boris Johnson fucked up in setting the post-Brexit income thresholds too low, which resulted in far more people coming than was anticipated.
His successors were then slow - very slow - to recognize this.
I find it astonishing that it wasn't recognized by either Johnson or Sunak (and his Home Secretaries) that numbers coming were way above forecast, and were resulting in much higher net migration than was the case when the UK was part of the EU.
And here Starmer is a very lucky General.
Firstly, higher income thresholds were put in place for visas. Now, you can argue that £38,700 is still too low (or alternatively that it is far too simplistic, given that a 21 year old earning £39k is very different to a 45 year old), but it is still almost 40% above the old threshold. That means that a very substantial number of people who were eligible for visas before, are no longer eligible. And it is Starmer who who will see the benefit.
Secondly, a large chunk of the increase in net immigration in the last three years has been student numbers. We've gone from 180k student (and dependent) visas issued a year to something like 600k. Based on experience most of those people will go home at the end of their courses. But there is an approximately three year period during which the number of students (and dependents) resident in the UK is rising fast. Once you get to the 3 or 4 year anniversary - and particularly if it is matched by smaller numbers of students coming - then the net impact falls dramatically.
Starmer, if he does absolutely nothing, will be Prime Minister, when net immigration numbers fall quite significantly. Because maths.
That’s fair, but immigration isn’t the whole ballgame here, and anyway to the aggrieved (I am not one of them) the numbers won’t “feel” lower because Xm arrived in the last couple of years.
The general “nothing works” frustration will remain because there’s no cash.
Brexit Britain could benefit from a flight to safety from the political chaos engulfing the US and EU.
This will compensate for all the dynamic wealthy patriots who'll be leaving for Dubai due to Labour wokeness and high taxes.
Oh please don't tell me that you, as an accountant, agree with that twat who wrote in The Guardian that we should be pleased that wealthy people are leaving.
To alter the quote from Blackadder, many Labour voters brains are so minute , that if a hungry cannibal cracked one of their heads open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Yes. On this we agree. Even by the standards of the Guardian, that was one of the stupidest articles I have ever read. “Hooray all the evil wealthy tax payers are leaving. The fact they are leaving and not willing to pay massive taxes PROVES they are evil so we should be glad they’re going”
Where do you even begin with an argument that dumb?
Don't get sick. Don't get old. As a certain Welsh Windbag said.
But that was said of the Tories. Labour's Britain is going to be a hell-hole of diminishing services if that "Eat the Rich!" mentality is as popular amongst the new intake as seems likely.
My worry is not that they’re all secret or even open Marxists. They’re not clever enough for that
And that is my worry. That they are dumb as rocks. All of them. At least you knew Blair was clever and perceptive and Brown had a massive if weird brain
These guys? Sometimes I wonder about starmer. I mean he must be bright because he made it to DPP. I wish he’d evidence it a little more. Yet he doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem. He never dreams. He speaks of himself in the third person. He has zero sense of humour and no idea of “telling a story”. If he’s intelligent it must be a highly narrow kind of intelligence
Says in Starmer's biography his A level grades were 2 Bs and a C. Now admittedly that included Maths and a Science which are more difficult and overall still clearly above average but does suggest he is hardly brain of Britain either.
Intelligence wise as PM he will probably be another John Major or Jim Callaghan with a bit more metropolitan flair but not a great cultural hinterland either
You really are an educational elitist.
Who cares if Mr Thickie Starmer is thicker than Mr Clever Sunak? Starmer has graduated from the school of hard knocks as a child of a tradesman.
If you believe the last sentence I have a bridge to sell you. And it is Sir Thickie if you don't mind.
He actually ended up graduating from the rather featherbedded St Edmund Hall Oxford via the perfectly respectable Leeds University. Essentially he is middle class by any measure, but the dinosaur class obsessed Labour Party want him to be seen as a working class lad. Laughable.
Excuse me. The class obsessed poster outraged at Starmer's mediocre higher education performance was not a member of the Labour party but a former Conservative councillor from Epping Forest.
Yes, but you've got to give him a bit of joy ffs!
I don't wish to be cruel, but seeing HYUFD pass judgement on people's youth-time educational attainment as though that were the only indicator of intelligence, reminds me of a fat bloke in our pub who goes on about the England players not being fit enough.
I am not running to be PM, nor is the fat bloke in the England team. That is the job they are highly paid for.
I also never said Starmer was thick but he is clearly not going to be in the top rank of our PMs by intelligence. Intelligence isn't the be all and end all for PMs, judgement, empathy and competence matters too but it helps
You define intelligence by A level results 35 years ago? Even worse than IQ testing.
Very true. Look at our Leon; he was thrown out of school for making stuff up, with just a swimming certificate by way of paper qualifications, and now he has an IQ of 6000.
I went to a big standard comprehensive and became an alcoholic at the age of 17. Somehow I got an offer of two Es from UCL so I swanned in nonetheless. Once there I did zero work concentrating on drugs girls and parties and after that I became a heroin addict for another 15 years nearly dying many times. I’ve never done a proper day’s work in my life and here I am sitting in a sun drenched garden on the island of ushant drinking free muscadet where I am being PAID to have a lovely holiday on all the islands of Brittany because this is my second job - my first job which takes an hour a day earns me more than the prime minister thus giving me plenty of time to remember the 100 countries I’ve visited and the approximately 300 young women I have fucked and the tax bill I got one year for £300,000
Imagine what I could have done if I’d worked hard like you
Reminds me of that story George Best used to tell about someone who walked in on him in a hotel as he cavorted with with two naked girls and drank Champagne. Shaking his head, the intruder said: "Where did it all go wrong, George? Where did it all go wrong?"
Best had incredible skill. Us mortals have to rely on luck. There is a hell of a lot to be said for knowing the right people and being in the right place at the right time. The trick then is to make the most of it.
But remember Gary Player’s dictum: the harder I train the luckier I get
I’ve examined my life quite hard for a memoir I’m writing to be serialised in the gazette. My conclusion is that 1. Yes I am very lucky but 2. I have been lucky SO MANY TIMES there is something else at play
I conclude it is extreme emotional and verbal intelligence allied with notable general intelligence. The first is basically: charm. I’m superb at persuading people to pay for me to have a good time - because I amuse them and make them feel better about life. If you can do that it can take you far. Part of this is soothing upset people or cheering sad people or knowing how to work a crowd - do all that and people want you around and will actually pay you to simply be around - the “personality hire”
The second - G - is necessary for intellectual work. You can charm your way into great situations but then need to exploit them. I also have the basic IQ to do that - and the words
I was also born quite good looking - nothing spectacular but enough. Hence all the women
However I was also born with several handicaps. Addiction. A fucked up family. Alcoholism. Intense depression and manias tho thankfully sporadic
But then again - isn’t that all luck? I was dealt a very good genetic hand, some people are born blind deaf and stupid. I am no better than them. Just luckier
So in the end you are quite right! It is all luck
If your memoirs are to be serialized it is a good reason to cancel my subscription and I will be sure to tell them why
Comments
I am very open about my emotions on this site. During lockdown 3 I was probably at the lowest point of my life - totally alone, my beautiful young wife had left me, stuck in a 1 bed flat during that terrible terrible winter - I was very close to suicide indeed I essentially attempted it a couple of times - driving at 140mph on UK A roads etc
I think PB was one reason I am still here and happy on a Breton island. And I am grateful for that
Anyway at risk of you thinking I am retreating into silence, it is time to go for a walk with dog and then go to pub!
The problem with the American system is that their courts seem a long way from impartial arbiter of our courts and they also, of course, have the power to strike down so much regulation and indeed legislation. This gives the courts more power than the politicians in many respects. When you have a partisan court, such as now, that is a real problem.
A populist right wing party is about to be kicked out of office in potentially spectacular style (don’t @ me, they are populist right wing: heavy on the divisive rhetoric, light on policy, economically centrist, elements of statism, classic populist - see Orban, Erdogan, Putin etc).
The rest of the West is going into its populist phase. America is getting Trump back. He may well fix the system so his people are in forever. Le Pen’s people are going to be running France. India is already captured, Germany is rediscovering its fashy heritage. But here in Britain we have a few years of Keir before PM Farage in 2029. Meanwhile the world’s burning up and China’s deciding when to press the Taiwan button.
So we should embrace it, right and left. Celebrate the fin de siècle before the decent into hell and the possible nuclear holocaust.
I am considering an ultra woke fancy dress party for election night, celebrating our short lived supremacy before the republic of Gilead descends.
The general “nothing works” frustration will remain because there’s no cash.
Libdems. Runnymede and weybridge 9/1.