Massively dull game. The goal is patently too small for play to be interesting and too big for penalties, but diagnosing and fixing this is beyond them.
I think there has been some serious prep for the penalties there, I bet with psychologists. They all had the same pre-kick routine.
I think having a manager who missed a crucial penalty also helps.
It reminded me of watching golfers with their pre-shot routine. Each with the slowing it down, the deep breaths, waiting for their heart rate to reduce a bit in a zen like pose for a few seconds.
Massively dull game. The goal is patently too small for play to be interesting and too big for penalties, but diagnosing and fixing this is beyond them.
In one of the great films, 12 angry men, the director brought both the walls and the roof in as the tension mounted in the jury room. Once it was resolved it opened up again. Perhaps we should do the same with goals, increase the size of the goal by 30 cm after every 10 minutes without a goal.
I think there has been some serious prep for the penalties there, I bet with psychologists. They all had the same pre-kick routine.
I think having a manager who missed a crucial penalty also helps.
We all know that happened - it is there in the memory - but personally I think we need to win a few more penalty shootouts before it can be mentioned in polite company.
Someone posted this yesterday but worth looking at again imo.
"But I can now disclose just why Sunak pushed for an early poll. It was because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners. Their average 2.7 per cent deals were being replaced by new packages closer to 6 per cent – adding hundreds and in some cases thousands of pounds to people's monthly outgoings. 'We walked through all the scenarios with the PM but this number was crucial to the decision,' insists my source. 'Oliver was obsessed by it. He flapped, as usual, as he feared that by November another 800,000 homeowners would have mortgages which had doubled in cost.'
A little side note from Thursdays elections, in the 60 local by elections most were holds but of some note, in the East Riding Reform got their first ever local by election gain from the Tories
Massively dull game. The goal is patently too small for play to be interesting and too big for penalties, but diagnosing and fixing this is beyond them.
In one of the great films, 12 angry men, the director brought both the walls and the roof in as the tension mounted in the jury room. Once it was resolved it opened up again. Perhaps we should do the same with goals, increase the size of the goal by 30 cm after every 10 minutes without a goal.
Take one player off from each team every goalless 10 minutes. At the end of tedious matches you are down to one outfield player and a goalie... Or 2 outfield players. It'd be great.
On electronic voting in the US: I accept that it is possible, given current technology. I do not think that it would be possible to get the high level of trust that it needs to be successful, given the current bitter divisions in the US.
(I'll leave it to those better informed about the UK than I to judge whether that high level of trust is possible in your nation.)
At the end of last month, an event happened that has passed relatively unheralded: the last coal train in Britain ran (*) to the last coal-fired power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, which itself will close later this year. (The power station still have a massive stockpile of coal to burn through, which you can see from the adjacent dual carriageway.)
King Coal is dead.
I remember when I was a kid, seeing (what seemed like) vast trains of HAA coal hoppers going into Spondon B and Willington power stations. It's hard to believe that this era is at end. A good thing, though, given climate change. But I will still mourn it.
Coal helped build the railways. Now coal is at an end, but the railways continue. And just a year before the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington railway, built to transport coal.
(Incidentally, I think my dad's company helped build the large horizontal pipes in the BBC picture - if they're part of the gas desulphurisation system, which I think they are. The pipes are truly massive.)
(*) To a power station, at least. And probably the last of all.
Massively dull game. The goal is patently too small for play to be interesting and too big for penalties, but diagnosing and fixing this is beyond them.
In one of the great films, 12 angry men, the director brought both the walls and the roof in as the tension mounted in the jury room. Once it was resolved it opened up again. Perhaps we should do the same with goals, increase the size of the goal by 30 cm after every 10 minutes without a goal.
Take one player off from each team every goalless 10 minutes. At the end of tedious matches you are down to one outfield player and a goalie... Or 2 outfield players. It'd be great.
This is what they do in ice-hockey. You lose players in Over Time.
On electronic voting in the US: I accept that it is possible, given current technology. I do not think that it would be possible to get the high level of trust that it needs to be successful, given the current bitter divisions in the US.
(I'll leave it to those better informed about the UK than I to judge whether that high level of trust is possible in your nation.)
Isn't it already used in certain places in the US?
On electronic voting in the US: I accept that it is possible, given current technology. I do not think that it would be possible to get the high level of trust that it needs to be successful, given the current bitter divisions in the US.
(I'll leave it to those better informed about the UK than I to judge whether that high level of trust is possible in your nation.)
Electronic voting is already used in the US, in various states and forms:
At the end of last month, an event happened that has passed relatively unheralded: the last coal train in Britain ran (*) to the last coal-fired power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, which itself will close later this year. (The power station still have a massive stockpile of coal to burn through, which you can see from the adjacent dual carriageway.)
King Coal is dead.
I remember when I was a kid, seeing (what seemed like) vast trains of HAA coal hoppers going into Spondon B and Willington power stations. It's hard to believe that this era is at end. A good thing, though, given climate change. But I will still mourn it.
Coal helped build the railways. Now coal is at an end, but the railways continue. And just a year before the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington railway, built to transport coal.
(Incidentally, I think my dad's company helped build the large horizontal pipes in the BBC picture - if they're part of the gas desulphurisation system, which I think they are. The pipes are truly massive.)
(*) To a power station, at least. And probably the last of all.
My great aunt used to live in Willington, and my old mum still lives in Littleover. Those cooling towers were part of my childhood.
Someone posted this yesterday but worth looking at again imo.
"But I can now disclose just why Sunak pushed for an early poll. It was because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners. Their average 2.7 per cent deals were being replaced by new packages closer to 6 per cent – adding hundreds and in some cases thousands of pounds to people's monthly outgoings. 'We walked through all the scenarios with the PM but this number was crucial to the decision,' insists my source. 'Oliver was obsessed by it. He flapped, as usual, as he feared that by November another 800,000 homeowners would have mortgages which had doubled in cost.'
I frankly find it astonishing and actually depressing that someone had to point this out. The point is that in this cycle interest rates have peaked and are now heading down. I don't believe that this would have been the gamechanger that Dowden thought. On the other hand I don't believe it would have made any difference to go later either. It might even have been worse. People were getting increasingly impatient with a government in office but not in power.
Looking at the Labour target list is also very revealing - 72 more seats available to them on swings of 5% or less, the vast bulk of which are held by the Conservatives.
All of the LD seats bar two are outside of Labour's top 120 targets. We all know how damaging Reform defections were to the Conservatives, but if anything demonstrates the full extent of the anti-Tory tactical switching between Lab and LD that occurred as well, that is surely it.
Massively dull game. The goal is patently too small for play to be interesting and too big for penalties, but diagnosing and fixing this is beyond them.
In one of the great films, 12 angry men, the director brought both the walls and the roof in as the tension mounted in the jury room. Once it was resolved it opened up again. Perhaps we should do the same with goals, increase the size of the goal by 30 cm after every 10 minutes without a goal.
Take one player off from each team every goalless 10 minutes. At the end of tedious matches you are down to one outfield player and a goalie... Or 2 outfield players. It'd be great.
This is what they do in ice-hockey. You lose players in Over Time.
At the end of last month, an event happened that has passed relatively unheralded: the last coal train in Britain ran (*) to the last coal-fired power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, which itself will close later this year. (The power station still have a massive stockpile of coal to burn through, which you can see from the adjacent dual carriageway.)
King Coal is dead.
I remember when I was a kid, seeing (what seemed like) vast trains of HAA coal hoppers going into Spondon B and Willington power stations. It's hard to believe that this era is at end. A good thing, though, given climate change. But I will still mourn it.
Coal helped build the railways. Now coal is at an end, but the railways continue. And just a year before the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington railway, built to transport coal.
(Incidentally, I think my dad's company helped build the large horizontal pipes in the BBC picture - if they're part of the gas desulphurisation system, which I think they are. The pipes are truly massive.)
(*) To a power station, at least. And probably the last of all.
When they built that power station they destroyed one of the most important trade towns in Roman midlands. No one knew (officially) until decades later when some excavations close to the edge of the site revealed traces. But the lack of a robust planning system allowed it to happen with nothing recorded.
This was pretty much the norm until Thatcher brought in the PPG system at the end of the 80s.
At the end of last month, an event happened that has passed relatively unheralded: the last coal train in Britain ran (*) to the last coal-fired power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, which itself will close later this year. (The power station still have a massive stockpile of coal to burn through, which you can see from the adjacent dual carriageway.)
King Coal is dead.
I remember when I was a kid, seeing (what seemed like) vast trains of HAA coal hoppers going into Spondon B and Willington power stations. It's hard to believe that this era is at end. A good thing, though, given climate change. But I will still mourn it.
Coal helped build the railways. Now coal is at an end, but the railways continue. And just a year before the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington railway, built to transport coal.
(Incidentally, I think my dad's company helped build the large horizontal pipes in the BBC picture - if they're part of the gas desulphurisation system, which I think they are. The pipes are truly massive.)
(*) To a power station, at least. And probably the last of all.
My great aunt used to live in Willington, and my old mum still lives in Littleover. Those cooling towers were part of my childhood.
Heh. I was born at Stenson, just down the road, and some of my family still live in Barrow. My uncle went to school at a little school just off the road that sometimes floods in Twyford (now a private house), and my dad remembers the old chain ferry across the river there.
At the end of last month, an event happened that has passed relatively unheralded: the last coal train in Britain ran (*) to the last coal-fired power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, which itself will close later this year. (The power station still have a massive stockpile of coal to burn through, which you can see from the adjacent dual carriageway.)
King Coal is dead.
I remember when I was a kid, seeing (what seemed like) vast trains of HAA coal hoppers going into Spondon B and Willington power stations. It's hard to believe that this era is at end. A good thing, though, given climate change. But I will still mourn it.
Coal helped build the railways. Now coal is at an end, but the railways continue. And just a year before the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington railway, built to transport coal.
(Incidentally, I think my dad's company helped build the large horizontal pipes in the BBC picture - if they're part of the gas desulphurisation system, which I think they are. The pipes are truly massive.)
(*) To a power station, at least. And probably the last of all.
There's still the blast furnace at Port Talbot, which I think gets coal via the South Wales Main Line. Due to be converted to an electric arc furnace in the very near future, though, so won't be running much longer...
I think there has been some serious prep for the penalties there, I bet with psychologists. They all had the same pre-kick routine.
I think having a manager who missed a crucial penalty also helps.
It reminded me of watching golfers with their pre-shot routine. Each with the slowing it down, the deep breaths, waiting for their heart rate to reduce a bit in a zen like pose for a few seconds.
I think there has been some serious prep for the penalties there, I bet with psychologists. They all had the same pre-kick routine.
I think having a manager who missed a crucial penalty also helps.
It reminded me of watching golfers with their pre-shot routine. Each with the slowing it down, the deep breaths, waiting for their heart rate to reduce a bit in a zen like pose for a few seconds.
Nothing on earth is as boring as golf, though.
You clearly weren't here for the Dingwall Counting Centre live stream.
Jonathan Reynolds was born on 28 August 1980 in Houghton-le-Spring to Keith and Judith Reynolds. He moved to Manchester in 1998, studying Politics and Modern History at the University of Manchester and BPP Law School (Manchester). After leaving university Reynolds worked for the council and (former MP) James Purnell, before beginning training as a solicitor. Reynolds served on Labour's National Executive Committee from 2003 to 2005. In 2007, he was elected to Tameside Council for the ward of Longdendale.
Reynolds worked for four years as a political assistant for the previous Stalybridge and Hyde MP James Purnell and was selected to replace Purnell after a controversial selection process. Reynolds is a member of the Co-operative Party and Unite the Union.
I think there has been some serious prep for the penalties there, I bet with psychologists. They all had the same pre-kick routine.
I think having a manager who missed a crucial penalty also helps.
It reminded me of watching golfers with their pre-shot routine. Each with the slowing it down, the deep breaths, waiting for their heart rate to reduce a bit in a zen like pose for a few seconds.
Nothing on earth is as boring as golf, though.
You clearly weren't here for the Dingwall Counting Centre live stream.
I think there has been some serious prep for the penalties there, I bet with psychologists. They all had the same pre-kick routine.
I think having a manager who missed a crucial penalty also helps.
It reminded me of watching golfers with their pre-shot routine. Each with the slowing it down, the deep breaths, waiting for their heart rate to reduce a bit in a zen like pose for a few seconds.
Nothing on earth is as boring as golf, though.
You clearly weren't here for the Dingwall Counting Centre live stream.
But, but, but …..overtime and time off in lieu!
Nice for the council staff, no incentive for the spectators.
That much said, there was the woman folding the black sheet thingy very nicely, and the stray sheep.
Yeah, OK, you win. DCC Live beats golf for excitement.
Jonathan Reynolds was born on 28 August 1980 in Houghton-le-Spring to Keith and Judith Reynolds. He moved to Manchester in 1998, studying Politics and Modern History at the University of Manchester and BPP Law School (Manchester). After leaving university Reynolds worked for the council and (former MP) James Purnell, before beginning training as a solicitor. Reynolds served on Labour's National Executive Committee from 2003 to 2005. In 2007, he was elected to Tameside Council for the ward of Longdendale.
Reynolds worked for four years as a political assistant for the previous Stalybridge and Hyde MP James Purnell and was selected to replace Purnell after a controversial selection process. Reynolds is a member of the Co-operative Party and Unite the Union.
Before my time but a site search for peak + Johnson shows someone called IshmaelZ posting "Hartlepool = peak Johnson" in May 2021. And this
"I still think we are round about peak Johnson. Wallpapergate still has the potential to turn into a lying to the house, breaching ministerial code, resigning sort of issue. Cummings still has things to say on the 26th. SKS looks vulnerable where Johnson wants him securely in place. Vaccine gratitude wears off. A high peak is still a peak."
Jonathan Reynolds was born on 28 August 1980 in Houghton-le-Spring to Keith and Judith Reynolds. He moved to Manchester in 1998, studying Politics and Modern History at the University of Manchester and BPP Law School (Manchester). After leaving university Reynolds worked for the council and (former MP) James Purnell, before beginning training as a solicitor. Reynolds served on Labour's National Executive Committee from 2003 to 2005. In 2007, he was elected to Tameside Council for the ward of Longdendale.
Reynolds worked for four years as a political assistant for the previous Stalybridge and Hyde MP James Purnell and was selected to replace Purnell after a controversial selection process. Reynolds is a member of the Co-operative Party and Unite the Union.
If anyone was worried about their postal vote on time it could be a lot, lot worse:
It should have been a simple transfer. Instead the businessman Stuart James lost almost all of his £1 million pot after a catalogue of failures by a pension firm and two of the UK’s biggest banks.
A big reason for his loss was the fact that his life savings were not sent electronically, or via a secure bank transfer. They were sent by cheque: a simple piece of paper that was transported, not by a specially arranged courier, but by Royal Mail.
This precious cargo was intercepted, pocketed by thieves and quickly deposited before being moved on to destinations still mainly unknown. More than six months later, having lost £30,000 in legal fees and unpaid interest, James is still without most of his carefully saved pension pot.
Jonathan Reynolds was born on 28 August 1980 in Houghton-le-Spring to Keith and Judith Reynolds. He moved to Manchester in 1998, studying Politics and Modern History at the University of Manchester and BPP Law School (Manchester). After leaving university Reynolds worked for the council and (former MP) James Purnell, before beginning training as a solicitor. Reynolds served on Labour's National Executive Committee from 2003 to 2005. In 2007, he was elected to Tameside Council for the ward of Longdendale.
Reynolds worked for four years as a political assistant for the previous Stalybridge and Hyde MP James Purnell and was selected to replace Purnell after a controversial selection process. Reynolds is a member of the Co-operative Party and Unite the Union.
So never been in business, never been in the private sector, never been in government.
Perhaps he's watched a few episodes of The Apprentice.
This, I'm afraid, is the age of professional politicians. An awful lot of them haven't done much else.
A big issue is that they may be professional politicians, but many of them aren't very good at the actual politics. If they were professional and more competent, I'd have less of an issue with it.
Jonathan Reynolds was born on 28 August 1980 in Houghton-le-Spring to Keith and Judith Reynolds. He moved to Manchester in 1998, studying Politics and Modern History at the University of Manchester and BPP Law School (Manchester). After leaving university Reynolds worked for the council and (former MP) James Purnell, before beginning training as a solicitor. Reynolds served on Labour's National Executive Committee from 2003 to 2005. In 2007, he was elected to Tameside Council for the ward of Longdendale.
Reynolds worked for four years as a political assistant for the previous Stalybridge and Hyde MP James Purnell and was selected to replace Purnell after a controversial selection process. Reynolds is a member of the Co-operative Party and Unite the Union.
Jonathan Reynolds was born on 28 August 1980 in Houghton-le-Spring to Keith and Judith Reynolds. He moved to Manchester in 1998, studying Politics and Modern History at the University of Manchester and BPP Law School (Manchester). After leaving university Reynolds worked for the council and (former MP) James Purnell, before beginning training as a solicitor. Reynolds served on Labour's National Executive Committee from 2003 to 2005. In 2007, he was elected to Tameside Council for the ward of Longdendale.
Reynolds worked for four years as a political assistant for the previous Stalybridge and Hyde MP James Purnell and was selected to replace Purnell after a controversial selection process. Reynolds is a member of the Co-operative Party and Unite the Union.
So never been in business, never been in the private sector, never been in government.
Perhaps he's watched a few episodes of The Apprentice.
If I was Starmer I would have tapped up another external appointment for this job. If your supposed to be all about growth, growth, growth, it would be helpful to have somebody who really understands business in that position (also the network of connections, you can sound out if ideas).
Vallance and Timpson are filling in other weaknesses. They are painfully short on anybody else who has setup or run a proper business.
Someone posted this yesterday but worth looking at again imo.
"But I can now disclose just why Sunak pushed for an early poll. It was because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners. Their average 2.7 per cent deals were being replaced by new packages closer to 6 per cent – adding hundreds and in some cases thousands of pounds to people's monthly outgoings. 'We walked through all the scenarios with the PM but this number was crucial to the decision,' insists my source. 'Oliver was obsessed by it. He flapped, as usual, as he feared that by November another 800,000 homeowners would have mortgages which had doubled in cost.'
I frankly find it astonishing and actually depressing that someone had to point this out. The point is that in this cycle interest rates have peaked and are now heading down. I don't believe that this would have been the gamechanger that Dowden thought. On the other hand I don't believe it would have made any difference to go later either. It might even have been worse. People were getting increasingly impatient with a government in office but not in power.
Has the entire Government been operating standing on their head in Lord Buckethead's Bucket for the last 2 years?
If anyone was worried about their postal vote on time it could be a lot, lot worse:
It should have been a simple transfer. Instead the businessman Stuart James lost almost all of his £1 million pot after a catalogue of failures by a pension firm and two of the UK’s biggest banks.
A big reason for his loss was the fact that his life savings were not sent electronically, or via a secure bank transfer. They were sent by cheque: a simple piece of paper that was transported, not by a specially arranged courier, but by Royal Mail.
This precious cargo was intercepted, pocketed by thieves and quickly deposited before being moved on to destinations still mainly unknown. More than six months later, having lost £30,000 in legal fees and unpaid interest, James is still without most of his carefully saved pension pot.
ISTR a story from the 1980s or so, where criminals were intercepting cheques for the Inland Revenue, then altering them to 'Mr Inlandi Revenuei' or somesuch before depositing them. No idea if it was true or not.
When voters were actually offered a form of PR in shape of AV, they said no by large margin.
Once in a generation vote???
AV is often anti-proportional: it would have resulted in a larger Labour 1997 for example.
True but the Referendum Party then got less than 10% of the voteshare Reform got on Thursday. AV would now therefore likely benefit the Tories much more than it did then as well as still helping the LDs, probably Reform not so much as PR would though as while they are 15% of voters first choice they would likely be not many voters second choice. Indeed plenty of Sunak Tories would vote LD or even Starmer Labour second over Reform
Yet another semi final in this extraordinary Southgate era. By any measure he is the best England manager after Ramsay, and unquestionably the best in my lifetime.
I hope he gets a trophy, though tbh even if we do get past the Dutch or the Turks, I don’t fancy us against Spain (France are a maybe).
Jonathan Reynolds was born on 28 August 1980 in Houghton-le-Spring to Keith and Judith Reynolds. He moved to Manchester in 1998, studying Politics and Modern History at the University of Manchester and BPP Law School (Manchester). After leaving university Reynolds worked for the council and (former MP) James Purnell, before beginning training as a solicitor. Reynolds served on Labour's National Executive Committee from 2003 to 2005. In 2007, he was elected to Tameside Council for the ward of Longdendale.
Reynolds worked for four years as a political assistant for the previous Stalybridge and Hyde MP James Purnell and was selected to replace Purnell after a controversial selection process. Reynolds is a member of the Co-operative Party and Unite the Union.
At the end of last month, an event happened that has passed relatively unheralded: the last coal train in Britain ran (*) to the last coal-fired power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, which itself will close later this year. (The power station still have a massive stockpile of coal to burn through, which you can see from the adjacent dual carriageway.)
King Coal is dead.
I remember when I was a kid, seeing (what seemed like) vast trains of HAA coal hoppers going into Spondon B and Willington power stations. It's hard to believe that this era is at end. A good thing, though, given climate change. But I will still mourn it.
Coal helped build the railways. Now coal is at an end, but the railways continue. And just a year before the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington railway, built to transport coal.
(Incidentally, I think my dad's company helped build the large horizontal pipes in the BBC picture - if they're part of the gas desulphurisation system, which I think they are. The pipes are truly massive.)
(*) To a power station, at least. And probably the last of all.
I used to deal with the Vicar there, who was also the part=time Industrial Chaplain to the Boots Company (and the power station.)
Suella Braverman has said that the Conservatives “deserved” their historic election defeat, in an intervention that will be seen as laying the groundwork for her leadership bid.
Writing in The Telegraph, the former home secretary accuses Rishi Sunak of pursuing an “idiotic strategy” and suggests that some of her colleagues treated voters like “mugs”.
O/T Bloody hell, just found out that on 15th June I placed a £10 bet on Lab getting 33.00-34.99% at odds of 110-1. Sorry to boast but I'd genuinely forgotten about those bets. I think the party was averaging about 45% in the polls.
O/T Bloody hell, just found out that on 15th June I placed a £10 bet on Lab getting 33.00-34.99% at odds of 110-1. Sorry to boast but I'd genuinely forgotten about those bets. I think the party was averaging about 45% in the polls.
Wow well done. I hope you’re going to do something really enjoyable with the winnings .
O/T Bloody hell, just found out that on 15th June I placed a £10 bet on Lab getting 33.00-34.99% at odds of 110-1. Sorry to boast but I'd genuinely forgotten about those bets. I think the party was averaging about 45% in the polls.
Before my time but a site search for peak + Johnson shows someone called IshmaelZ posting "Hartlepool = peak Johnson" in May 2021. And this
"I still think we are round about peak Johnson. Wallpapergate still has the potential to turn into a lying to the house, breaching ministerial code, resigning sort of issue. Cummings still has things to say on the 26th. SKS looks vulnerable where Johnson wants him securely in place. Vaccine gratitude wears off. A high peak is still a peak."
Wouldn’t know bout that. The guy was an obnoxious prick whose posts I ignored
If anyone was worried about their postal vote on time it could be a lot, lot worse:
It should have been a simple transfer. Instead the businessman Stuart James lost almost all of his £1 million pot after a catalogue of failures by a pension firm and two of the UK’s biggest banks.
A big reason for his loss was the fact that his life savings were not sent electronically, or via a secure bank transfer. They were sent by cheque: a simple piece of paper that was transported, not by a specially arranged courier, but by Royal Mail.
This precious cargo was intercepted, pocketed by thieves and quickly deposited before being moved on to destinations still mainly unknown. More than six months later, having lost £30,000 in legal fees and unpaid interest, James is still without most of his carefully saved pension pot.
Mate, you missed the most important part from his Wiki entry.
In December 2015, Reynolds introduced a Private Member's Bill which would have changed UK general elections from first-past-the-post to the additional-member system.
Looking at the Labour target list is also very revealing - 72 more seats available to them on swings of 5% or less, the vast bulk of which are held by the Conservatives.
All of the LD seats bar two are outside of Labour's top 120 targets. We all know how damaging Reform defections were to the Conservatives, but if anything demonstrates the full extent of the anti-Tory tactical switching between Lab and LD that occurred as well, that is surely it.
Indeed but given Labour are over 400 seats now it is hard to see them gaining many more seats. Indeed in the general election after their 1997 landslide in 2001 Labour only gained 2 seats, Dorset South from the Tories and Ynys Mon from Plaid although they held almost all the seats they had won in 1997
If anyone was worried about their postal vote on time it could be a lot, lot worse:
It should have been a simple transfer. Instead the businessman Stuart James lost almost all of his £1 million pot after a catalogue of failures by a pension firm and two of the UK’s biggest banks.
A big reason for his loss was the fact that his life savings were not sent electronically, or via a secure bank transfer. They were sent by cheque: a simple piece of paper that was transported, not by a specially arranged courier, but by Royal Mail.
This precious cargo was intercepted, pocketed by thieves and quickly deposited before being moved on to destinations still mainly unknown. More than six months later, having lost £30,000 in legal fees and unpaid interest, James is still without most of his carefully saved pension pot.
ISTR a story from the 1980s or so, where criminals were intercepting cheques for the Inland Revenue, then altering them to 'Mr Inlandi Revenuei' or somesuch before depositing them. No idea if it was true or not.
A bank which allowed such an account name to be opened would have been answering questions themselves I hope.
If anyone was worried about their postal vote on time it could be a lot, lot worse:
It should have been a simple transfer. Instead the businessman Stuart James lost almost all of his £1 million pot after a catalogue of failures by a pension firm and two of the UK’s biggest banks.
A big reason for his loss was the fact that his life savings were not sent electronically, or via a secure bank transfer. They were sent by cheque: a simple piece of paper that was transported, not by a specially arranged courier, but by Royal Mail.
This precious cargo was intercepted, pocketed by thieves and quickly deposited before being moved on to destinations still mainly unknown. More than six months later, having lost £30,000 in legal fees and unpaid interest, James is still without most of his carefully saved pension pot.
No need to look behind the paywall to imagine what happened next. The two banks and the pension firm are now, presumably, all stonewalling and pointing the finger at each other, whilst the man suffers without his money. And will probably still be suffering without his money in ten years' time.
It's all of a piece with cases reported with such frequency in the news that we hardly pay any attention to them anymore. All those Carers' Allowance recipients pursued ruthlessly for tens of thousands of pounds, because their pitiful pin money part-time jobs paid them 3p an hour more than they were allowed. The woman who spent months disputing the £62,000 electricity bill issued for her one bedroom flat who, whilst pleading over and over with the wretched supplier to correct their blindingly obvious mistake, was then threatened with the bailliffs for late payment. Total incompetence, wilful obstruction, penny pinching and merciless cruelty - the hallmarks of much of British officialdom, both within the organs of the state and in private enterprise. The country isn't merely floating on, drowning in and encircled by its own sewage, all the people in it are treated like shit, too.
Before my time but a site search for peak + Johnson shows someone called IshmaelZ posting "Hartlepool = peak Johnson" in May 2021. And this
"I still think we are round about peak Johnson. Wallpapergate still has the potential to turn into a lying to the house, breaching ministerial code, resigning sort of issue. Cummings still has things to say on the 26th. SKS looks vulnerable where Johnson wants him securely in place. Vaccine gratitude wears off. A high peak is still a peak."
Wouldn’t know bout that. The guy was an obnoxious prick whose posts I ignored
Didn't think that at all. For instance, he was unusual for a rightwinger in accepting the importance of slavery in the UK economy, for much the same reasons as me - and I had had to do with my own eyes from helping with historical research.
Comments
Southgate must have got them to practice them a bit.
Here was mine….
Monksfield Posts: 2,542
July 3
My predicted vote shares & seats:
Lab 38 / 410
Con 22 / 134
LD 13 / 53
Ref 14 / 2
Grn 5 / 3
SNP 2 / 22
Other 6 / 26 (18 NI, 4 PC, Speaker, Corbyn, Dewsbury + 1)
Overcooked SNP, undercooked LibDem and Reform. Tory & Lab very close.
But nailed Corbyn, Dewsbury and one of the other Gaza loons
Starmer is a lucky general
L is for Last Four.
I don't trust blokes who don't like footie and a pint...call me old fashioned....
"But I can now disclose just why Sunak pushed for an early poll. It was because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners. Their average 2.7 per cent deals were being replaced by new packages closer to 6 per cent – adding hundreds and in some cases thousands of pounds to people's monthly outgoings. 'We walked through all the scenarios with the PM but this number was crucial to the decision,' insists my source. 'Oliver was obsessed by it. He flapped, as usual, as he feared that by November another 800,000 homeowners would have mortgages which had doubled in cost.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13605549/why-rishi-sunak-called-july-general-election.html
Gareth Southgate has taken England to the semis/final in three of the four tournaments he's managed England.
All that wokeness must be behind it.
https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/conservative
https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/liberal-democrat
https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/snp
https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/reform-uk
(I'll leave it to those better informed about the UK than I to judge whether that high level of trust is possible in your nation.)
At the end of last month, an event happened that has passed relatively unheralded: the last coal train in Britain ran (*) to the last coal-fired power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, which itself will close later this year. (The power station still have a massive stockpile of coal to burn through, which you can see from the adjacent dual carriageway.)
King Coal is dead.
I remember when I was a kid, seeing (what seemed like) vast trains of HAA coal hoppers going into Spondon B and Willington power stations. It's hard to believe that this era is at end. A good thing, though, given climate change. But I will still mourn it.
Coal helped build the railways. Now coal is at an end, but the railways continue. And just a year before the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington railway, built to transport coal.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c886qd2g80xo
(Incidentally, I think my dad's company helped build the large horizontal pipes in the BBC picture - if they're part of the gas desulphurisation system, which I think they are. The pipes are truly massive.)
(*) To a power station, at least. And probably the last of all.
I think he's auditioning for Lineker's job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_in_the_United_States
The lists of problems are expectedly long. But any machine that uses closed-source software should be nowhere near elections.
All of the LD seats bar two are outside of Labour's top 120 targets. We all know how damaging Reform defections were to the Conservatives, but if anything demonstrates the full extent of the anti-Tory tactical switching between Lab and LD that occurred as well, that is surely it.
This was pretty much the norm until Thatcher brought in the PPG system at the end of the 80s.
Turkey.
https://x.com/paddypower/status/1809659461537067487?s=46
See also Shining Path, Land of the Rising Sun etc. A pretty iffy metaphor
Once in a generation vote???
Jonathan Reynolds was born on 28 August 1980 in Houghton-le-Spring to Keith and Judith Reynolds. He moved to Manchester in 1998, studying Politics and Modern History at the University of Manchester and BPP Law School (Manchester). After leaving university Reynolds worked for the council and (former MP) James Purnell, before beginning training as a solicitor. Reynolds served on Labour's National Executive Committee from 2003 to 2005. In 2007, he was elected to Tameside Council for the ward of Longdendale.
Reynolds worked for four years as a political assistant for the previous Stalybridge and Hyde MP James Purnell and was selected to replace Purnell after a controversial selection process. Reynolds is a member of the Co-operative Party and Unite the Union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Reynolds
So never been in business, never been in the private sector, never been in government.
Perhaps he's watched a few episodes of The Apprentice.
AV is NOT a form of PR!
That much said, there was the woman folding the black sheet thingy very nicely, and the stray sheep.
Yeah, OK, you win. DCC Live beats golf for excitement.
"I still think we are round about peak Johnson. Wallpapergate still has the potential to turn into a lying to the house, breaching ministerial code, resigning sort of issue. Cummings still has things to say on the 26th. SKS looks vulnerable where Johnson wants him securely in place. Vaccine gratitude wears off. A high peak is still a peak."
It should have been a simple transfer. Instead the businessman Stuart James lost almost all of his £1 million pot after a catalogue of failures by a pension firm and two of the UK’s biggest banks.
A big reason for his loss was the fact that his life savings were not sent electronically, or via a secure bank transfer. They were sent by cheque: a simple piece of paper that was transported, not by a specially arranged courier, but by Royal Mail.
This precious cargo was intercepted, pocketed by thieves and quickly deposited before being moved on to destinations still mainly unknown. More than six months later, having lost £30,000 in legal fees and unpaid interest, James is still without most of his carefully saved pension pot.
https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/money/article/lost-pension-uk-barclays-tsb-cheque-zbzlssfrs
Vallance and Timpson are filling in other weaknesses. They are painfully short on anybody else who has setup or run a proper business.
Dirty, diving, Duchies
Oh.
Yet another semi final in this extraordinary Southgate era. By any measure he is the best England manager after Ramsay, and unquestionably the best in my lifetime.
I hope he gets a trophy, though tbh even if we do get past the Dutch or the Turks, I don’t fancy us against Spain (France are a maybe).
Writing in The Telegraph, the former home secretary accuses Rishi Sunak of pursuing an “idiotic strategy” and suggests that some of her colleagues treated voters like “mugs”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/06/tories-had-it-coming-says-braverman/
It’s in the stars . Starmer will bask in Euro glory and the public will know already that life will be better under Labour.
In December 2015, Reynolds introduced a Private Member's Bill which would have changed UK general elections from first-past-the-post to the additional-member system.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/the-last-coal-train.254336/
It's all of a piece with cases reported with such frequency in the news that we hardly pay any attention to them anymore. All those Carers' Allowance recipients pursued ruthlessly for tens of thousands of pounds, because their pitiful pin money part-time jobs paid them 3p an hour more than they were allowed. The woman who spent months disputing the £62,000 electricity bill issued for her one bedroom flat who, whilst pleading over and over with the wretched supplier to correct their blindingly obvious mistake, was then threatened with the bailliffs for late payment. Total incompetence, wilful obstruction, penny pinching and merciless cruelty - the hallmarks of much of British officialdom, both within the organs of the state and in private enterprise. The country isn't merely floating on, drowning in and encircled by its own sewage, all the people in it are treated like shit, too.
https://x.com/jemmaforte/status/1809495039690629463